DNAi Combines Self-Destructing DNA with CRISPRMay 29, 2015Have you ever watched a spy move and felt yourself craving spy gadgets, such as explosive chewing gum, or a tricked out Aston Martin? Well if you are a genome-engineering scientist you can now get your very own spy gadget – self-destructing DNA! But this cool creation isn’t just to fulfill your 007 dreams, it […]
miRNA-Switches Makes Stem Cell Selection Pure and SimpleMay 28, 2015As any sports coach, hopeful lottery winner, or child in a candy store will tell you, an effective selection strategy is vitally important to a successful outcome. Selection is also an important concept for scientists and clinicians hoping to take advantage of the ability that human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) have to differentiate into multiple […]
MINimize Your Genome Engineering Efforts with CRISPR and Bxb1May 28, 2015CRISPR is for genome engineering what Mike Tyson was for boxing: simple, efficient and almost a guarantee to see a knockout in the first round. While in boxing a knockout typically results in an involuntary power nap of the opponent, the phenotype of a gene knockout is often not so clear-cut. Besides potential problems caused […]
Could Chromatin Organization be the Key to Eternal Youth?May 13, 2015For thousands of years great men such as Alexander the Great and Ponce de León have searched far and wide in their search for the fountain of youth and the hope of eternal life. But where they previously failed, an enterprising group of scientists may have now just succeeded! A report published recently in Science […]
Twins Team Up to Help Unravel DNA Methylation in SchizophreniaMay 12, 2015While they can’t see through lead or stop bullets with their chest, twins do have a superpower of their own – when it comes to unraveling the complex genomic and epigenomic changes underlying diseases and disorders. In their latest adventure monozygotic twins are helping to understand the DNA methylation changes associated with schizophrenia. The epigenomics of […]