By ARTE France Scientifilms

Our hands, our eyes , our face

our all body is an aggregate of billions of cells.

At the heart of each of them is nestled the DNA,

the one that we received from our parents

and that we'll transfer to our children.

What is exactly passed

from one generation to the other,

from one cell to the other?

We know that DNA is transmitted

but not only DNA.

Identical twins

have the same DNA,

the same genome,

and nonetheless have physical differences.

How is that possible?

The genome has been considered like a book

and indeed book's editions can be

very different from each other.

Scientist have assumed for a long time

that DNA ruled our biologic destiny.

Nowadays they're discovering a new world:

we're becoming more and more aware that

DNA doesn't explain everything.

And more and more capable of cultivating

the ideas about the impact of the environment.

All around the world,

biologists are investigating this new mystery.

My job is to look into

the cellular nucleus

for new knowledge

and to reach places that people have never reached before.

A scientific adventure

in which we seek to unravel step by step

what influences our DNA

during our intere lifetime,

our identity

and, possibly, our inheritance.

The new mysteries of our inheritance

A film by Laurence Selfaty

wrote together with Cécile Dumas