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A Little Negativity Can Go a Long Way with Protein-Based Genome Editing

November 12, 2014

In today’s culture negativity is usually frowned upon; maintaining a positive outlook is almost essential to a successful scientific career, but an innovative team of researchers have put some negativity to good use in improving transfection of genome editing complexes using negatively charged proteins and nucleic acid transfection reagents. Conventional protein-based therapeutics usually focus on […]

Breaking Barriers: Cloning Made Easier by Erasing Epigenetic Marks

November 5, 2014

If Star Wars is anything to go by, cloning techniques of the future will be able to create a whole army of clones in the blink of an eye. Yet, back on planet Earth, the cloning of today is still relatively inefficient. A new study published in Cell identifies an important epigenetic road block in […]

Polymerases are Key Influencers in Homologous Recombination Events

November 5, 2014

Gene targeting by homologous recombination can be variable and researchers are itching to understand what key factors underlie variable success in editing experiments. Could it be an unfavorable chromatin environment, repetitive sequences, or maybe just bad luck? An unrelenting group of researchers at the University of Washington recently set out to shed some light on the genomic elements […]

in vivo CRISPR Takes Aim at Key DNA Methylation Players in the Brain

October 31, 2014

Adding to the ever growing potential of genome editing, one of the latest breakthroughs from the lab of Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard puts CRISPR/Cas9 to the test with an interesting research trifecta of: in vivo genome editing focused on the brain genome editing that targeted DNA methylation machinery including key readers and writers. both […]

A CRISPR Way to Create Fusions

October 31, 2014

As CRISPR continues to evolve into the laboratory version of a Swiss Army Knife, it’s not surprising that another innovative research team have used the approach in a slick way; in this case to engineer of oncogenic chromosomal rearrangements. Chromosomal rearrangements, gene fusions, deletions and inversions are classical hallmarks of cancer. These re-arrangements lead to […]

‘Naïve’ Human Embryonic Stem Cells Found in Culture

October 31, 2014

Cultured human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) already have some idea of what they want to be when they grow up whereas cultured mouse ESCs are completely undecided about their future careers. A study published in Nature challenges this distinction and shows that some hESCs in culture still haven’t quite made up their minds. Mouse ESCs […]

Optimized Stem Cell Differentiation Protocol Aims to Mend Broken Hearts

October 30, 2014

Broken hearts aren’t just for country songs. Millions of people die each year from cardiovascular disease and related complications. Damage to the muscles of the heart during events such as heart attacks is mostly irreversible and severely affects length and quality of life for those who survive. Creating replacement muscle cells – or cardiomyocytes – […]

Histone Modification Reading Domains Crack Complex Combos

October 30, 2014

Having alternatives is always great, particularly when it comes to studying histone modifications. By using some recombinant proteins of histone reading domains, researchers from the lab of Albert Jeltsch at Stuttgart University (Germany) recently demonstrated that these domains might just one-up antibodies when it comes to deciphering the combos of the histone code. Lead author Goran Kungulovski shares that “Histone […]

Developmental Origin of Schizophrenia-Associated DNA Methylation

October 30, 2014

Schizophrenia is one complex disease, with a number of subtypes and an origin unknown. However, despite it’s complexity, recent evidence points toward an interaction between genes and environment that are mediated by the epigenome. Further adding to the complexity is the fact that most patients are treated with powerful antipsychotics that also remodel the epigenome in […]

Pol II Gives Cells Pause During Somatic Cell Reprogramming

October 27, 2014

Few inventions have led the convenience revolution more so than the remote control. The Pause, Play, and Fast-forward buttons give us complete command of our entertainment while we relax after a hard day at work. But little did we know that researchers from the group of Miguel A. Esteban (Chinese Academy of Sciences) haven’t been […]