Potential Stem Cell Treatment for Human Hair LossFebruary 3, 2015Throw away those tonics! Bin those balms! Hide those hairpieces! We bring great news for those who are losing more than the average of 100 hairs per day. In a set of hair-raising experiments researchers from the laboratory of Alexey V. Terskikh (Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, USA) have developed a novel strategy for the production […]
Scientists Teach Bacteria a New Genetic Language to Prevent EscapesFebruary 2, 2015Although synthetic biology holds the potential to revolutionize everything from healthcare to sustainable manufacturing, it has also spawned fears of engineered organisms escaping the lab and wreaking havoc. Ever since Viktor Frankenstein first plugged life into his unwitting subject, something about manipulating life has held a special place in humanity’s collective nightmares. Early geneticists, recognizing […]
A SIRT-an Link Between Metabolism, Stem Cell Function and EpigeneticsJanuary 27, 2015In our younger years our rampant metabolism meant we could eat what we wanted with little or no consequences. However, as we get older, our metabolism somehow gets “reprogrammed”, meaning all that yummy bad stuff does nothing for our energy levels or our waistlines! But why do we face this fate? A delectable new study […]
Bacterial Kryptonite Uncovered in the Biological Dark Matter MinesJanuary 27, 2015Public health has a looming, if slow-simmering, crisis. Antibiotics, which revolutionized health care in the 20th century, are losing their punch. Evolution, it turns out, is pretty effective at producing things that don’t die. Accordingly, bacteria are evolving resistance to our antibiotic arsenal, and more people are suffering from previously-treatable infections. Meanwhile, the pipeline of […]
A Good Friend is Forever: DNMTs and Histone ComplexesJanuary 26, 2015It’s not always easy to find good friends, but recent work has found that the de novo DNA methyltransferases DNMT3A2 and DNMT3B1 are far from socially awkward. Baubec et al. from the Swiss team lead by Dirk Schübeler uncovered some companions of these DNMTs by profiling their binding in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) through streptavidin […]
