How can a young girl’s experience of starvation lead to metabolic issues in her grandchildren? The answer is transgenerational epigenetic inheritance – how biological responses to physical, emotional, or environmental stress can be passed down through generations.
In this episode, Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin, the Herbert and Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Cell Research at the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University in New York City, explains the mechanics behind transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and provides a glimpse into her latest project, TRANSMIND, which investigates whether memories alone can be inherited in some form. She also shares how growing up with foster siblings fed her interest in parental-offspring relationships, explores whether scientists can be activists, and challenges the assumed objectivity of science.
Bianca Jones Marlin was a 2025 – 2026 Reid Hall Faculty Visitor, an initiative jointly supported by the Columbia Global Paris Center and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.
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Host: Marie Doezema
Production: Marie Doezema, Tessa Overvoorde, and Anthony Valette
Editing: Theo Albaric
Music: Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne performed by Magdalena Baczewska and Sasha He
With thanks to the Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Centre in Paris
The Columbia Global Paris Center is part of a network of 11 global centers of Columbia University in the City of New York, one of the world's leading academic institutions. The centers serve as knowledge hubs that aim to educate and inspire through research, dialogue, and action. They advance understanding, facilitate partnerships, and build the bridges necessary to tackle our changing world.
Columbia Global brings together the Columbia Global Centers, Columbia World Projects, the Committee on Global Thought, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination.