5fC is Stable in Mammalian BrainsJune 24, 2015DNA methylation has been undergoing dramatic change lately. 6mA shook things up by showing Cytosine can’t claim all the glory and now a talented team from the UK have shown 5-formylcytosine (5fC) is starting to follow in 5hmC’s independent footsteps. The team profiled 5hmC, 5fC, and 5caC using: in vivo isotope labeling of methionine to penetrate […]
Gene Editing Future Brightens with paCas9June 22, 2015We knew it was coming. No, not another Jurassic Park sequel. No, not another installment of Star Wars. More inevitable than the revival of the Terminator franchise: we now have photoactivatable CRISPR/Cas9. Yes, as surely as the sun rises, scientists have developed a way to use that light (or at least the blue part) to […]
Stem Cell Reprogramming – Leaner, Quicker, Cheaper, BetterJune 20, 2015“More for less” is a phrase that generally gets most people excited, and scientists trying to make induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are no exception. The reprogramming of somatic cells to generate iPSCs aims to bring patient-specific cell replacement therapies to the masses, but the process currently suffers from obstacles common to new technologies – […]
Nukes Aid Stem Cell Research in the HeartJune 20, 2015Researchers from the laboratory of Jonas Frisén at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have recently put radioactive carbon from nuclear bomb tests to good use, testing whether the adult human heart has the ability to repair itself. So how does that work? Well, a sharp rise in atmospheric radioactive carbon in the 1950-60s due to […]
Webinar: Advanced ChIP Normalization ControlsJune 17, 2015Abstract: Gene expression is regulated by a combination of transcription factor binding and the distribution of epigenetic modifications across regulatory regions. Much of what we know about the epigenome and gene regulation stems from our ability to determine the genome-wide distribution of histone modifications and transcription factors using chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by next generation sequencing […]