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Newly Evolved Ribozyme Is Proof-of-principle for the Origin of Life

December 13, 2014

Life is complicated. While that does apply to ordering your daily caffeine fix at Starbucks, what we’re talking about here is darwinian, entropy-defying, self-replicating life. Just to store, read, and apply genetic information requires 3 different types of molecules: DNA, RNA, and proteins. That makes it tough to imagine how life could ooze into being in […]

Reprogramming to Pluripotency: Lessons from the Egg

December 8, 2014

Have you ever wish you could just clone yourself? How much more work you’d be able to get done in a day! While creating an exact copy of yourself that knows everything you do is still very much in the realms of science fiction, cloning human cells is a reality. The first big leap came […]

T Cell Blockade Offers Safe Haven for Stem Cell Transplants

December 6, 2014

As if human embryonic stem cells didn’t have enough trouble already making it through governmental legislation, they also face rejection from another source: the immune system. In their latest study, Herman Waldmann and his team of talented immunologists from the University of Oxford report a simple strategy to induce long-lasting immune tolerance to stem cell […]

Stem Cells Out of Position – A New Paradigm for Colorectal Cancer?

December 5, 2014

Colorectal cancer is, unfortunately, a common condition, making up 10% of global cancer cases. Therefore, a full understanding of the initiation and development of these tumor types should improve diagnosis and treatment decisions. A recent study from the University of Oxford has identified a potentially important mechanism of colorectal tumor formation that not only challenges current […]

Understanding How H3K4me1 Affects the Ageing Stem Cell

December 4, 2014

Even though we don’t want to admit it, we all see changes in ourselves as the years pass by. A few more inches round the waistline here, and a little less muscle tone there, all due to a little less exercise and a little more food and drink! But what changes occur in our stem […]

Unwinding the Chromatin–Cancer Connection

December 4, 2014

There’s no denying that epigenetics and cancer are intimately intertwined, and that untangling this connection is vitally important in expanding our understanding of cancer initiation and development. Epigenetic signals are reversible regulators of gene expression and as such, make compelling targets in the study and treatment of cancer. As high-throughput data analysis becomes the norm, entire panels […]

EpiGenie Book Review: Epigenetics in Psychiatry

December 3, 2014

Epigenetics in Psychiatry brings together a collection of researchers in the field of neuroepigenetics to provide insight into research on the role of epigenetics in a range of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and suicide. Not content with covering only these topics it also provides information on the techniques and animal models […]

Developmental Windows: Dutch Hunger Winter

December 2, 2014

Famine is never a good thing, particularly if you’re a developing fetus. And while the role of maternal diet in fetal programming is nothing new to the world of DNA methylation, there’s still a lot to be learned about the subtle variations. When it comes to growth and metabolism, timing of the environmental exposure appears is important, […]

DNMTs Divide Their Dynamic DNA Methylation Labour

November 27, 2014

Splitting up work amongst the team is always a sound strategy for success. We’ve seen that the TET family likes to divide it’s labour and now, not so suprisingly, the ever so famous DNA methyltransferases have also been caught working smart. Researchers from the Center for Individualized Medicine at the Mayo Clinic used acute and combined depletions […]

Embryonic Stem Cell Model Highlights Importance of Histone Mutation in Childhood Tumorigenesis

November 26, 2014

Childhood cancers are truly devastating diseases; they cause major loss of young lives due to the distinct lack of treatment options stemming from the limited access to tumor tissues. Hopefully, a promising new study published in Science will change this. Researchers from the laboratory Viviane Tabar at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA […]