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Ever get that feeling that you forgot something? Well maybe you did, but it doesn't have to be recent epigenetics research if you scope out our Headlines each week.

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The Sunnyside of Precision DNA Demethylation by dCas9-TET1

September 2, 2016

On its quests to edit the epigenome like no biotechnology ever has, our deactivated Cas9 (dCas9) hero has come across many powerful effectors. When seeking out precision DNA demethylation, it has previously seen a multi TET1 approach. This makes use of both a dCas9 and TET1 catalytic domain fusion (dCas9-TET1) and also sgRNA 2.0 to […]

Tuning Chromatin Microenvironments with Epigenome Editing

August 27, 2016

Ensuring the sustainability of our environment is a noble goal, and when it comes to the chromatin microenvironments epigenome editing is no exception. While we’ve seen a range of epigenome editing applications, the long-term (mitotically stable) nature of these modifications has remained a challenge. In 2002, epigenome editing demonstrated that when it comes to the […]

Dendrimer-RNA Nanoparticles Go For Vaccination Gold

August 14, 2016

There is perhaps no tougher event in the immunity games than the vaccination all-around. Live-attenuated vaccines score high on efficacy, but they lack both speed (new formulations take months to produce) and endurance (they have short shelf lives). In addition, they have to work hard to avoid losing points on safety. Purified antigen vaccines have […]

Daisy Drive: The Safer, Prettier Gene Drive

August 14, 2016

Gene drives, which could theoretically engineer entire species, are a much-ballyhooed but little tested application for CRISPR-based genetic engineering. Gene drives would bias inheritance in sexual reproduction, with drive alleles passing themselves on nearly 100% of the time, instead of the 50% for normal Mendelian inheritance. Including a CRISPR effector like Cas9, a guide RNA, […]

Maternal Diet And rDNA Variants Combine To Determine Child Epi-Fate

August 14, 2016

If you’ve been following nutrition studies hoping for diet advice, you may have noticed it’s complicated. First fat is bad, then it’s just saturated fat, then just trans fat, then actually it’s sugar. This may cause some to throw their hands up in frustration (grabbing a Twinkie from the top shelf while they’re up there), […]

Free Conference Registration for Upcoming Conferences

August 7, 2016

Fall in San Diego means great weather, uncrowded beaches, and lovely surf, which means we’re not leaving. That’s good news for you though as we’re sending our community members to cover these great upcoming conferences. Please have a look at each of these and respond using the form at the footer of this post if […]

Colon Organoid Model: A New Tool for Cancer Research

July 23, 2016

The English sea captain and politician Sir Francis Drake believed in “sic parvis magna”, or “greatness from small beginnings”. While he hasn’t been around to see the recent explosion in organoid (or mini-organ) research, we are sure he would be impressed. Measuring a few millimeters in diameter and produced via three-dimensional differentiation of stem cells, […]

R-Loops at Gene Promoters and Terminals Mark the Epigenome

July 18, 2016

In today’s loopy world, the wise words “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” have a particular resonance. Thankfully, our epigenomes are dynamic historians that get the message and make use of past transcripts by forming R-loops. R-Loops and the Epigenome R-loops are RNA-DNA hybrids: a 3 stranded nucleic acid structure. […]

Extra-Coding RNAs (ecRNAs) Sculpt Dynamic DNA Methylation of the Brain

July 18, 2016

We’ve got our mind on methylation and methylation in our mind, but we are often left wondering how DNA methylation got there in the first place. Well, that cognitive tongue twister has now been cracked by a class of RNA that likes to interact with DNA methyltransferases. Extra coding RNAs (ecRNAs) originate from the sense […]

Hey Methylation, Thanks for the Memories

July 18, 2016

Memories; we all have some we would rather forget, and some that we will hold onto forever. But how exactly is memory formed and what are the biochemical pathways that are in play? Recent studies have indicated that RNA and DNA adenosine methylation are important for the conversion of experiences, both good and bad, into […]