Andrew Feinberg

Andrew Feinberg pioneered the study of epigenetic alterations in cancer, co-discovering DNA methylation changes in human tumors in 1983, one of the first demonstrations that epigenetic mechanisms contribute to carcinogenesis. He proposed the epigenetic progenitor model of cancer, arguing that stochastic epigenetic disruption in stem/progenitor cells precedes genetic mutations and creates a permissive landscape for tumor initiation. His laboratory identified loss of imprinting at the IGF2 locus as a common early event in colorectal cancer and developed methods for measuring epigenetic variability across cell populations.