Young Mitochondria Maintain Stem Cell Self-renewalApril 14, 2015For many commuters, good maintenance may make the difference between getting to work on time or waiting in the cold to be rescued from the roadside at 8:00 in the morning. Like any vehicle, a cell is a well-oiled machine with many parts that are continuously replaced or repaired to ensure durability. Now, new research […]
Cancer Therapy Gets a Little PersonalApril 14, 2015Just like snowflakes we are all unique (at least genetically speaking), and unfortunately for modern medicine so are our cancers. This individuality in cancers, even of the same type or subtype, means that there is no single cure-all. However, researchers, like those at the from Washington University in St. Louis and The University of Oklahoma, […]
Bees Model Their Potential for Epigenomic ResearchApril 13, 2015With spring in the air, the honeybees are already out and buzzing about and now an international team from Australia and Poland have created a different type of buzz with their research into 5hmC and its effect of bee’s behaviour. The importance of epigenetics in bees has already been suggested with the finding that honeybees use miRNAs to enable their […]
The Little Blue Pill Gets an Optogenetic UpgradeApril 13, 2015While there’s no denying that optogenetics is one stimulating piece of biotechnology, the double entendre of optogenetics being a ‘turn on‘ has now become fact. The lab of Martin Fussenegger at ETH Zurich’s Department of Biosystems in Basel, Switzerland has developed a synthetic optogenetic technology that allows for the blue Viagra® pill to be skipped by a blue light that induces penile […]
CRISPR Gets Creative with Histone AcetylationApril 9, 2015There’s been a lot of firsts in the world of genome editing happening lately, from its application in human embryonic stem cells, the identification of a smaller more versatile Cas9, to its upgrade to efficiently using homology-directed repair. Now CRISPR-Cas9 is getting its feet wet with epigenome editing thanks to the clever folks in the Gersbach lab […]
