news links

« Previous Entries

NanoDrop It Like Its Hot

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

I just came across this video on the NanoDrop Technologies web site. The NanoDrop is a new spectrophotometer that is growing popular among molecular biology researchers due to its ease of use and time effective advantages over traditional spectrophotometers. I’ve been using it exclusively for getting DNA and RNA concentrations; the results have been [...]

Epigenetic Abnormalities in Animal Clones Downplayed in Report on Food Safety from FDA

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

The Washington Post is reporting this week on a 968-page report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the safety of food from cloned animals that are now widely available.
A long-awaited final report from the Food and Drug Administration concludes that foods from healthy cloned animals and their offspring are as safe as [...]

Science Links for December 8, 2007

Saturday, December 8th, 2007

One of the postdocs here in the Skinner lab, Dr. Ramji Bhandari, has started a blog related to his area of expertise, Sex Determination Research. Ramji is new to blogging and decided to get his feet wet with a number of relevent abstracts, which will be a nice resource for those interested in sex determination.
Cautious [...]

Review Highlights Recent Advances in Computational Epigenetics

Monday, November 26th, 2007

A nice review article by Bock et. al. in Bioinformatics sheds light on some of the recent advances (2006-2007) being made in computational epigenetics. Some highlights:

The article provides a succinct introduction to epigenetics research for bioinformaticians that are new to the field, including explanations of mitotic vs. meiotic epigenetic inheritance, mechanisms of epigenetic regulation, and [...]

Backing up Research Data and Publications with Mozy

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

I’m a regular reader of Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline, an excellent blog written by an industry chemist that offers insight on careers in research, the ups and downs of life in the lab, and his unique perspective on pharmaceutical news. His recent post about the lengths that he went through to back up his [...]

Bringing Your Research Lab’s Web Site into the 21st Century

Friday, November 9th, 2007

I have been asked by enough people for advice on making their lab web site “better” for various reasons, so I decided to put together a list of things that will have a tremendous impact on a researcher’s ability to provide readers with the information they’re looking for, convey a professional effort in its appearance, [...]

McGill University Exploring Link Between Childhood Abuse and Adult Suicide

Monday, July 30th, 2007

Canadian weekly magazine Maclean’s has published a brief article profiling the ongoing work of Dr. Moshe Szyf of McGill University, who for years has been at the forefront of cancer and nutritional epigenetics. Dr. Szyf is currently collaborating with McGill neuroscientist Dr. Gustavo Terecki, director of the McGill Group for Suicide Studies. A brief synopsis [...]

This Week’s NOVA scienceNOW to Feature Segment on Epigenetics

Monday, July 23rd, 2007

It appears that the July 24, 2007 edition of NOVA scienceNOW on PBS will feature a segment on epigenetics, highlighting some of the work being done by researchers that we have covered here before (Duke University’s Randy Jirtle, among others). You’ll have to check your local listings for air time in your area. The segment [...]

PLoS ONE Adds Five Star Ratings for Research Papers

Thursday, July 12th, 2007

A new feature has been added this week to the open access journal PLoS ONE, which was launched just last year. In addition to accepting comments and annotations on individual research articles, the journal is now allowing registered users to rate each paper in three categories: Insight, Reliability, and Style. The resulting average score (on [...]

2007 Epigenetics Gordon Conference Schedule Set and Oversubscribed

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

This year’s Gordon Conference in Epigenetics, to be held August 5-10 at the Holderness School in Plymouth, NH, is oversubscribed and will not be accepting more attendees unless there are cancellations. However, the full conference schedule has been posted, with sessions in:

Epigenomics
DNA Methylation
Histone Modifications and Variants
Imprinting, Dosage Compensation and Chromosomal Mechanisms
Roles of RNA I
Roles of [...]

Epigenetics Receives Green Light as Major Initiative in NIH Roadmap 1.5

Friday, June 22nd, 2007

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded their selection process for a new cohort of Roadmap initiatives, approving four topics as Major Roadmap Initiatives. Two programs, epigenetics and microbiomes, were approved for immediate implementation as five year programs. The four programs approved as major roadmap initiatives are:
Microbiome - The goal of the proposed Human [...]

Coming Soon: Broad Epigenetic Product Library from Sigma-Aldrich

Tuesday, June 12th, 2007

This morning Sigma-Aldrich announced that it has signed a licensing agreement with Epigentek Group, Inc. for core technologies in DNA modification, methylation quantification and protein/DNA interaction. The first product, the Imprint DNA Modification Kit, is available starting this month. Sigma will also be offering kits for global methylation quantitation and chromatin immunoprecipitation based on Epigentek’s [...]

USC Expands Epigenetics Research Space with New Tower

Sunday, May 27th, 2007

The University of Southern California in Los Angeles has just opened a new 10-story, 172,440 square foot facility dedicated exclusively to the study of epigenetics, the Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower. The tower will host five floors of basic research, two floors of preventative medicine research, the Hinderstein Family Meditation Garden, a 200-seat auditorium, [...]

Mendel’s Garden #14

Tuesday, May 8th, 2007

Welcome to the fourteenth edition of Mendel’s Garden, a blog carnival devoted to everything that has to do with the discipline of genetics. It’s ironic that it’s being hosted on a blog devoted entirely to showing that classical genetics isn’t what it’s all about — epigenetics is, in some ways, challenging the classical assumptions of [...]

Epigenomics & Sequencing Meeting 2007: July 9-10 in Boston, MA

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

GeneExpression Systems, Inc. will be hosting the 1st International Epigenomics & Sequencing Meeting on July 9-10, 2007 at The Conference Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. I spoke with GeneExpression Systems Founder and CEO Dr. Krishnarao Appasani, who explained that the meeting is aimed at bringing together a diverse field of epigenomics researchers [...]

« Previous Entries