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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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Improving Regenerative Therapies with Naked Mole Rat iPSCs

May 20, 2016

At first glance the naked mole rat (NMR), or Heterocephalus glaber to his Latin speaking friends, might not win you over with its looks, but it truly is an amazing animal. It’s obviously comfortable in its own skin, but it also thrives in harsh environments, lacks pain sensitivity in its skin, has low metabolic and […]

Age, Sequence, and DNA Methylation are Culprits of Lactose Intolerance

May 20, 2016

While fine wine and aged cheese are culinary delights, some of us who dine on dairy often start to go a bit ‘sour’ with age and develop lactose intolerance. Thankfully, to aid our mental digestion of such a foul fate, a collaborative effort between Toronto and Lithuania has shown the molecular mechanism of why we can […]

On Demand Demethylation with dCas9-TET1

May 16, 2016

Every researcher loves a good tool, and lately, it seems that CRISPR might be an even more modular tool than PCR. Attesting to the modularity of CRISPR/Cas9 is catalytically deactivated Cas9 (dCas9). dCas9 has the precision of Cas9, when combined with sgRNA, and can be fused to a modular effector domain that allows for extra […]

Small Molecule Cocktails are a Big Hit at the Cellular Reprogramming Party

May 6, 2016

Cellular reprogramming represents the biological equivalent of spinning gold from straw: the generation of one therapeutically-desired cell type from another more abundant, and less useful, starting cell type. Following reprogramming, we can incorporate the resultant cells into new and effective patient-specific regenerative strategies. Reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) generates a […]

Trifecta of Epigenetic Methylation Reveals a Long-Term Profile of Fetal Alcohol Exposure

May 6, 2016

During this time of the year, it’s easy to get caught up in landscaping. Regardless of whether your landscaping is of the epigenetic or garden variety, it seems that either way we can all benefit from the wisdom of the old saying, “can’t see the forest for the trees”. Sometimes we just get so caught […]

Liquid Biopsies Reveal More than Sequence: The Epigenomics of Circulating Cell-Free DNA

May 6, 2016

Every good captain knows that when your ship is in distress, you send out an SOS. Now, two new papers now leave us wondering if that tactic is borrowed from diseased tissues. Many diseases are characterized by cell death that releases circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) into the blood stream, which can now be analyzed in […]

Cas9 Magic Opens Locked Chromatin

May 2, 2016

For all the hoopla over CRISPR/Cas9 and its mystical powers, the system still hasn’t passed the most basic test of any magic talisman – waving it over a locked gate while chanting “open sesame”! Fortunately, a band of scientists led by Amira Barkal and Richard Sherwood have now vindicated CRISPR’s powers, using it to open […]

iPSC Generation Gets a “Little” Help from Microfluidics

April 29, 2016

Long complex steps, poor efficiency, expensive reagents, and scant results…don’t you wish that your cell-based experiments were a “little” bit easier and a “little” more efficient? These desires are commonplace for researchers generating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in the hope of constructing patient-specific therapies. So what can we do to improve this important process? […]

Genes, Age, and Sex: Meet the Masters of Your Methylome

April 21, 2016

What do age, sex, environment, and genomics have in common? Well, aside from taking your mind to the wrong place, they also interact to shape your methylome. There’s no denying that genome and epigenome share many intimate associations (cue dim lighting). We’ve seen that epigenetic modification can precede mutation in cancer and evolution. Then, of […]

EZH2 Makes Distinguishing Aggressive Basal Cell Carcinoma Tumors EZer

April 21, 2016

When it comes to the epigenetics of cancer, there isn’t much that’s easy when trying to understand what makes a tumor; but now a talented team from the University of Michigan has just made understating it all that much EZer. Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common cancer in people of Caucasian descent. Most […]