Archive for March, 2007
Epigenetics in Focus at Nature Reviews Genetics
Monday, March 26th, 2007Following closely on the heels of the special issue of Cell on epigenetics, Nature Reviews Genetics today published its own focus issue on epigenetics (April 2007), with reviews from some of the most prominent experts in several sub-disciplines within epigenetics, including stem cell research, cancer epigenomics, and environmental epigenetics. The editors of the journal open [...]
Agenda for March 2007 SACGHS Meeting Now Available
Friday, March 23rd, 2007The final agenda is now available online for the 12th meeting of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health, and Society, which will be held Monday, March 26th and Tuesday, March 27th in Adelphi, MD. This is the committee that earlier this year completed its report on the viability of a large population cohort study [...]
Attending Northwest Reproductive Sciences Symposium
Friday, March 23rd, 2007Today I am attending the 9th Annual Northwest Reproductive Sciences Symposium in Moscow, ID, hosted by the Center for Reproductive Biology at Washington State University and University of Idaho. I have just returned from attending the keynote presentation by Dr. Peter Donovan of the University of California, Irvine entitled “Making Stem Cells from Germ Cells [...]
10 Best Ways to Save Time at the Lab Bench
Tuesday, March 20th, 2007I’ve been working in research labs for the past 3+ years now. During that time, I’ve picked up on some great ways to save time when working at the bench. Here’s my 10 best tips:
1. Don’t Make It, Steal It. If you don’t have a reagent already made for your procedure, “borrow” it from the [...]
DNA Methylation Involved in Memory Formation
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have published new research supporting their hypothesis that DNA methylation plays a role in forming memories (1). The link between methylation and memory formation came about from the observation that methylation was disregulated in people suffering from brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
In their experiments, the [...]
Epigenetics Attracting Attention from Investors
Monday, March 12th, 2007I’ve talked before about e-mails I commonly receive from consultants, investors, and others regarding investment ideas of companies that are poised to take advantage of the research being done in epigenetics. I thought I would share a recent example of one such e-mail:
Hello Trevor-
Congrats on getting this site up. I [...]
Liposuctioned Fat as a Source of Stem Cells
Friday, March 9th, 2007
In 2004, members of the American Society of Plastic Surgerons performed over 320,000 liposuction procedures (1). Who knew that the extracted fat was a potential source of stem cells for research or therapeutics.
Dr. Philipe Collas at the University os Oslo in Norway is conducting research to identify the stem cells among liposuctioned fat cells that [...]
Potential Conflict of Interest at NIEHS
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007The National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is under fire. Effect Measure, a blog written anonymously by public health experts and practitioners, has written a critical review of David Schwartz’s two year term as director of the NIEHS:
Schwartz, like other Bush appointees, has a penchant for outsourcing public functions to private concerns, and under [...]
The New Look
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007I went and did it: Epigenetics News now has a brand new look. I am still working out the kinks, but this design should load much faster and is much more “simple” than the previous rendition. I hope that the readability is still very good (or better) and that the appearance doesn’t detract from the [...]
Epigenetics Symposium a Success at University of Arizona
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007The Arizona Daily Wildcat reports on the first major science symposium held last Saturday in the new Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch building at the University of Arizona in Tucson: Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression and Inheritance Symposium.
Maureen Peterson, a first-year genetics graduate student, said because of the symposium, she wants to do further research in [...]
New Mendel’s Garden Now Available
Monday, March 5th, 2007The latest edition of Mendel’s Garden, the blog carnival devoted to all things genetic, is now available at Behavioral Ecology Blog. Among the highlights this week are posts on the genetics of ABO blood types and eye color, the keys to managing DNA sequencing data, and details of the pitfalls in amassing large DNA databases. [...]
Gadd45a Promotes Epigenetic Gene Activation by Repair-Mediated DNA Demethylation
Monday, March 5th, 2007Nature has published a letter from researchers at the German Cancer Research Center involving their implication of the gene Gadd45a in one of the black boxes of epigenetic mechanisms: demethylation.
DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification that is essential for gene silencing and genome stability in many organisms. Although methyltransferases that promote DNA methylation are well [...]
Science Links for the Weekend
Saturday, March 3rd, 2007Here’s some of the best science links I’ve come across over the past couple weeks:
Volunteers at LibriVox have created a free audiobook of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859). Total running time: 24:22:37, total download size: 702.2 MB. (HT: Boing Boing).
Neurotopia hosts the 74th edition of Tangled Bank, [...]
The Big Commercial Break and An Idea
Thursday, March 1st, 2007In the last week, two more sponsors have chosen to purchase a text link at Epigenetics News: Surgeon’s Advisor and HealthTalk.
Surgeon’s Advisor is a marketing firm that asists cosmetic surgeons, plastic surgeons, and doctors increase their visibility on the web through search engine optimization (SEO), site design, link building, and other techniques. If you’re a [...]
Need Help in the Lab? Just Hit the Forums
Thursday, March 1st, 2007I recently got word that there is an active forum available for researchers in epigenetics; mainly DNA methylation and chromatin modification experiments. Protocol Online maintains a DNA Methylation, Histone and Chromatin Study forum that is fairly active. The majority of the posts seem to deal with bouncing ideas between technicians for troubleshooting problems in common [...]
