Headlines Archives - EpiGenie | Epigenetics, Stem Cell, and Synthetic Biology News

Headlines

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.

Search Articles

The Little Blue Pill Gets an Optogenetic Upgrade

April 13, 2015

While there’s no denying that optogenetics is one stimulating piece of biotechnology, the double entendre of optogenetics being a ‘turn on‘ has now become fact. The lab of Martin Fussenegger at ETH Zurich’s Department of Biosystems in Basel, Switzerland has developed a synthetic optogenetic technology that allows for the blue Viagra® pill to be skipped by a blue light that induces penile […]

CRISPR Gets Creative with Histone Acetylation

April 9, 2015

There’s been a lot of firsts in the world of genome editing happening lately, from its application in human embryonic stem cells, the identification of a smaller more versatile Cas9, to its upgrade to efficiently using homology-directed repair. Now CRISPR-Cas9 is getting its feet wet with epigenome editing thanks to the clever folks in the Gersbach lab […]

Slimmer Cas9 is Better Able to Squeeze into Cells

April 7, 2015

We’ve already seen how CRISPR-Cas9 is making the headlines with its utility in human embryonic stem cell editing, but now it’s getting a makeover to make it even more attractive for use in humans. Current CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology is faced by two translational limitations. The first is targeting, where PAM sequences and sgRNA design […]

DNMT1 Loss is Lethal in Human But Not Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells

April 2, 2015

Mouse models have been great to science, they’ve given insight into humans in ways simply not possible in humans. However, while there are striking similarities in the epigenetics of mice and men, there are also undoubtedly some fundamental differences. Now, a team from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard consisting of the labs of Alexander Meissner, J. Keith Joung, and John […]

Sex On the Brain: DNA Methylation Defines Gender

March 31, 2015

A talented team from the University of Maryland has added some strong molecular evidence that DNA methylation is an active player in setting the sexual behaviors you’re born with. Sexuality has always been a complex topic. Typically it refers to presence or absence of certain sex organs. However, the concept of gender is more complex, as […]

Boosting CRISPR’s Editing Effectiveness

March 31, 2015

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock you’ll know that CRISPR-Cas has been in the forefront of precise genome editing since its discovery in 1987 by Atsuo Nakata. However, as a technique it is not without shortcomings; while it has achieved a great deal of efficiency in the non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) pathway, its ability to achieve […]

Cas9: The Ultimate Gene Driving Machine

March 30, 2015

Add one more to all the amazing things CRISPR can do: it is also the ultimate driving machine. Provided, of course, that you are a gene, and that your destination is any chromosome where you do not currently reside. Gene Drives Spread by Overwriting Alleles A gene drive is when a gene on one chromosome […]

H3K9me3: The Genomic Pacifier That Silences SINEs

March 30, 2015

Kids can be hard to handle, between dealing with drawing on the walls and public temper tantrums; therefore all parents need a successful tactic for keeping them under control. Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs) are like the chaotic kids of the genome. These repetitive sequences make up about 11% of our genome and because of their […]

Transdifferentiation Strategy Weeds Out Immature Cancer Cells

March 29, 2015

Every gardener knows the key to successful weeding; extract the entire root because even a small section can regenerate the whole plant. When treating cancer, doctors are faced with the same problem. Immature cancer stem cells often escape treatment and repopulate the tumor, despite its successful elimination by radio or chemotherapy. In a new take […]

The Long Route of MeCP2 in Transcription

March 24, 2015

A number of teams have already spent time in trying to uncover the path that leads from MeCP2 disruption to Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder in the autism spectrum. Adding detail to MeCP2’s repressive function, a team led by Michael Greenberg gathered data from MeCP2 mouse mutants and patient samples, finding an unexpected clue in long-gene […]