Early-Life Stress, Epigenetics, and Disease with Dr Patrick McGowanSeptember 8, 2011Dr. Patrick McGowan discusses how stresses early in life can potentially impact epigenetic mechanisms and disease susceptibility. This short take was shot during a break at Keystone Symposia’s meeting on Environmental Epigenomics and Disease Susceptibility held in March 2011 in Asheville, North Carolina. Environmental Influences on Developmental Programming Well epigenetics is really central to the […]
Biocomputers Use miRNA Profiles to ID and Kill Cancer CellsSeptember 7, 2011Computers for your cells? Sounds like the plot to a Star Trek episode, but researchers report that they’ve developed a biocomputer that can figure out if a cell is cancerous and destroy it by triggering apoptosis —all by detecting miRNA levels, potentially leading to much more targeted cancer therapies than what’s available now. The researchers […]
NCBI NIH Tools for Surfing the EpigenomeAugust 31, 2011Massive epigenome mapping projects have led to a deluge of data that eager epigeneticists can’t wait dive into, but it’s not quite that simple. It’s no easy feat to learn about the best places to download, view or manipulate epigenomic data, much less understand the tidal wave of information once you’ve found it. It’s all […]
EpiGenie Reviews Epigenetics: A Reference ManualAugust 31, 2011Epigenetics is such a young and expanding field that it’s tough to find a lot of good reference material out there. And what you can find is usually scattered all across any number of places on the World Wide Web. That’s why we are so stoked to see the new epigenetics text, Epigenetics: A Reference […]
Quick Interviews from Keystone Symposia’s Meeting on Environmental Epigenomics and Disease SusceptibilityAugust 25, 2011We set out to provide a few nice interviews with some of the outstanding cast of researchers that presented at Keystone Symposia’s meeting on Environmental Epigenomics and Disease Susceptibility last spring, but one thing led to another, and well…here they are now. Apologies for the delay, but we think you’ll agree it was worth the […]
A New Spin on RNA PurificationAugust 18, 2011RNA isolation. It doesn’t get that much hype, but it should considering it’s the first, and perhaps most critical, step in virtually every RNA analysis workflow out there. Today’s favorite techniques are increasingly accurate and precise and some applications, like next-gen sequencing, will have you swimming in data analysis for weeks. That’s not such a […]
Microfluidic qRT-PCR Unlocks Single Cell miRNA SecretsAugust 12, 2011Recent headlines tell us that the average American lives in a household of 2.62 people, chows down too many potato chips, and thinks that the “Dirty Dancing” remake is a bad idea. But averaging over populations obscures the often highly variable characteristics of individuals, and the same is true for cells. To get a better […]
EpiGenie Stem Cell Epigenetics ReviewAugust 4, 2011We’re big fans of stem cell research, the vast potential it represents and the close connection it has to epigenetics. Apparently we aren’t alone either, judging by the avalanche of top-notch papers that regularly cross our monitors. We’ve even give serious consideration to launching another site just to be able cover the area properly (StemGenie, […]
miR-103 Takes the Sting Out of Chronic PainAugust 3, 2011Simple aches pains send us scrambling for the ibuprofen, so we can only imagine how hard it is to deal with chronic pain. Following up on the role that microRNAs play in some neurological processes, researchers found that miR-103 regulates certain pain channels, and may one day be the a key to chronic pain relief. […]
Regulation of RNA Splicing and Histone Methylation a Two-Way StreetJuly 28, 2011The evidence that chromatin is involved in regulating splicing is piling up. But is that just a one-way street? No, says an international team of researchers who now report loads of data suggesting that splicing can return the favor and contribute to histone methylation. Looking at ChIP experiments in mouse and human genomes, the researchers […]