On the Trail of Naïve Human Pluripotent CellsNovember 23, 2014The creation of pluripotent stem-cell lines from early embryos has enabled the indefinite capture in vitro of one of nature’s most fascinating but fleeting faces. Yet, not all embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are alike. Mouse ESCs are free from differentiation bias and epigenetic restriction, whereas human ESCs have already made some fundamental developmental decisions. But […]
Two New Players for Better Differential Peak Detection in ChIP-SeqNovember 22, 2014Sometimes bioinformatics can seem a bit mystical, particularly when a tool arrives that makes you wonder what you were wasting your time doing before it. ChIP-seq is no stranger to this world and as a driver of a large proportion of epigenomic experimentation we’re also no stranger to the challenges of processing ChIP-seq data and peak calling. One of […]
Direct Reprogramming of Neural Stem Cells – A Step Closer to the Clinic?November 18, 2014“Well there goes another couple of thousand brain cells…” – a common thought after a beer, a glass of wine, or an hour or so of television, or maybe more if it’s reality TV. But can we replace these lost cells? Millions of college kids would like to, but there’s also a long list of […]
CRISPR and Stem Cells Team Up Against HIVNovember 17, 2014To this day Timothy Ray Brown, otherwise known as the Berlin Patient, is the only person cured after infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The cure came in a fortuitous form; a stem cell transplant used to treat his leukemia came from a donor with natural resistant to HIV. Soon after, researchers discovered that […]
Coffee Gets Your Baby’s Heart Going…the Wrong WayNovember 13, 2014There’s no denying the power of coffee, it seems that without it humanity wouldn’t have the concentration or energy needed to tackle the complexities of the epigenome. But as researchers from the University of Florida show, with consumption comes responsibility and a molecule powerful enough to help you complete the 180 from bed to breakfast, may […]
