Cas9 Magic Opens Locked ChromatinMay 2, 2016For all the hoopla over CRISPR/Cas9 and its mystical powers, the system still hasn’t passed the most basic test of any magic talisman – waving it over a locked gate while chanting “open sesame”! Fortunately, a band of scientists led by Amira Barkal and Richard Sherwood have now vindicated CRISPR’s powers, using it to open […]
iPSC Generation Gets a “Little” Help from MicrofluidicsApril 29, 2016Long complex steps, poor efficiency, expensive reagents, and scant results…don’t you wish that your cell-based experiments were a “little” bit easier and a “little” more efficient? These desires are commonplace for researchers generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in the hope of constructing patient-specific therapies. So what can we do to improve this important process? […]
Genes, Age, and Sex: Meet the Masters of Your MethylomeApril 21, 2016What do age, sex, environment, and genomics have in common? Well, aside from taking your mind to the wrong place, they also interact to shape your methylome. There’s no denying that genome and epigenome share many intimate associations (cue dim lighting). We’ve seen that epigenetic modification can precede mutation in cancer and evolution. Then, of […]
EZH2 Makes Distinguishing Aggressive Basal Cell Carcinoma Tumors EZerApril 21, 2016When it comes to the epigenetics of cancer, there isn’t much that’s easy when trying to understand what makes a tumor; but now a talented team from the University of Michigan has just made understating it all that much EZer. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common cancer in people of Caucasian descent. Most […]
Cello – An Automated Composer For Gene CircuitsApril 14, 2016A lot of the inspiration, terminology, and even scientists in synthetic biology come from electrical engineering and computer science. Hence, we talk about “gene circuits” and “cellular computing”. However, this connection to digital computing hasn’t been much more than a metaphor, at least not until Cello walked on stage. Synthetic biology has been about as […]
