Meeting report on the round table discussions ‘epigenetics and society’ CLEPIC24

This paper reports and analyses round table discussions at the 2024 Clinical Epigenetics International Conference, which were designed to increase sociotechnical reflexivity, and to develop context-sensitive and practically actionable Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) frameworks in the epigenetics community. Participants focused either on the readiness of the nascent field of epigenetic editing to move from bench to bedside, or on the current state of environmental epigenetic research and its readiness for regulatory risk assessment of chemical safety. The round table discussions gave insight into uncertainties and challenges surrounding the use of epigenetic knowledge in precision environmental health and personalized medicine, such as a lack of knowledge of the complex role of the (epi)genome in health and disease. Moreover, diverse views exist in the epigenetics community concerning the foundational objectives, practical standards and translational goals of epigenetic editing and environmental epigenetics. We believe this highlights the need for an explicit agenda that addresses three intersecting challenges within the epigenetics community. First, we urge the field to explicitly discuss what kinds of knowledge it deems necessary before moving epigenetic applications to the clinic or for public policy purposes. Second, the roundtables revealed a related need for clear methodological and analytical standards to guide research that bridges the gap between basic epigenetic science and its applied potential. Third, the roundtables suggest the existence of a largely unexplored reflexivity among scientists on the evidentiary thresholds, standards of knowledge, and collective commitments that should guide the field in its policy and clinical translations.