Online Stem Cell Diploma from University of Ulster 2014August 13, 2014The University of Ulster is offering an entirely online, postgraduate diploma course in Stem Cell Biology and it’s starting soon. The course is designed to allow students to break into, or advance in a career in the stem cell field. They’ve assembled a panel of international stem cell industry experts advising on the course content […]
Non-Watson-Crick Base Pairing in the miRNA Seed RegionAugust 12, 2014First epigenetics knocked Mendel off the high horse of simple inheritance and now it’s taking a shot at Watson and Crick. It seems that not even base-pairing is safe these days, with microRNA targeting demonstrating that it is anything but simple. In its latest political statement this member of the non-coding party has been caught […]
CRISPR/Cas9 Get Upgraded sgRNA TargetingAugust 12, 2014The Crispr/Cas9 genome editing system has risen to fame so quickly it appears to be suffering from a case of the bends. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University however have just given it a bit more room by to breathe by overcoming an inherent bias that limits sequences the system can target. By modifying the short guide […]
Patient Specific iPSCs Team Up with CRISPR/Cas9August 12, 2014Some villains are so tough that it might take a few heroes to take them on. β-thalassemia is just that evil, an all too common genetic disease at the worldwide level. Caused by simple mutations in the hemoglobin beta (HBB) gene, this beast is Mendelian in nature. Which makes a perfect target for CRISPR/Cas9, a duo with […]
The Embryonic Journey of DNA Methylation DynamicsAugust 5, 2014Two recent Nature papers made big strides in understanding mammalian embryonic DNA methylation. The Meissner and Eggan team from Harvard focused in on CpG dynamics and how they compare to mice, specifically in terms of parental contribution. While the Qian and Tang team from Bejing examined how DNAm effects the epigenetic embryonic landscape in terms of histone […]
