Our Mission
AGiR! is here to provide information and promote research!
A big picture concept for the public interest: genomic integrity is meant to include all the molecular genetic details in our cells. Our cells have 25000 genes and more, including all sorts of RNAs, many levels of epigenetics, expression induction and repression depending on environmental cues; and probably 5000 genes are essential for basic life processes. The ‘genomic integrity’ concept is meant to simplify the complex and dynamic activities in all our cells into something we can all attempt to grasp. Anything that blocks or disrupts these dynamic processes can potentially disturb health and well-being…
In a sense we already have known of ‘the cause’ of cancer (and of so many other ailments) for such a long time: Genetic lesions, the disruption of proper gene expression, breaks in and losses of chromosomal regions, and so on, impact on ‘genomic integrity’ in so many possible ways, given those 20k+ genes we have in our cells, result in chronic diseases…
You can act to protect Genomic integrity in many ways - even less sugar intake is one way to reduce ‘reactive oxygen species’ levels, for instance….
The choices made are key!
The aim of the international association, AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research!, is to provide information about how so many common practices can result in DNA damage (also indirectly, via our own cellular processes) or can affect gene expression (via e.g. RNAs or epigenetic ‘marks’ on DNA itself or associated histone proteins).
AGiR! wants to promote research, to determine how to not only quantify impacts on genomic integrity, but perhaps prevent them!
Are you concerned about health and the future? Click around and please think about your cells, and all these issues!
Who we are
Concerned about impacts of fashion choices on genomic integrity, the biologist Rachel Aronoff has kept a website for several years aiming to ‘end fashion victimization’ in the most serious sense of the phrase! After many years, she finally took that old website , its domain, genomicintegrity.org, and its blog one step further, to become the non-profit association: “AGiR! Action for Genomic integrity through Research” at the first meeting of the general assembly, Sept2013 This move will hopefully allow better transmission of information and encourage further directed research about what factors result in the most damage and the best means to protect and preserve genomic integrity.
Luckily, she (shown, left, at the first General Assembly meeting) has found some people willing to help get this all going, hoping to provide information and promote research! :)
Officially, as of the last general assembly meetings (April 2020) on the executive committee of AGiR!, as a public service association in Switzerland, the bord members are:
- Rachel Aronoff, PhD, as founder and president,
- Tatiana Eliseeva, as secretary, and
- Carol Bonvin, as treasurer
We are still learning more about DNA and the RNAs that regulate so many aspects of its expression and stability.
Other active members in AGiR! and its supporters include people from Zurich to Geneva (and, as valued participants, from all around the world).
Use the contact form to join in!
