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How I Found the Greally Lab
By Trevor | January 26, 2007
The Greally lab was really easy to find. They linked to me. I have access to a nice stats package through my Web host that shows every referrer to Epigenetics News. So if any Web site links to any page of this site, I’ll eventually see it. Eventually, because there are now hundreds (if not thousands) of sites that link to Epigenetics News. And Dr. Greally, or presumably the person that updates their lab’s web page, decided to add a nice link to “Trevor Covert’s Epigenetics News site, a really valuable blog of all things current in the world of epigenetics.”
So, why should anyone care about the Greally lab? Well, as it turns out, they’re doing some fantastic epigenetics research. Based at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, Dr. John M. Greally “has a long-standing interest in gene regulatory processes that extend over large regions of the genome and give rise to human diseases.”
Our major projects are centred on the discovery of DNA sequence characteristics that discriminate genes undergoing genomic imprinting, using these to find new imprinted genes that are candidates for causing human disease.
The technologies required for this research include innovative molecular assays and bioinformatics techniques. This combination provided the foundation for our recent new avenue of study into cytosine methylation patterns in large regions of the genome.
We use these techniques to learn the rules of normal epigenetic gene regulation through cytosine methylation, creating the foundation for understanding how it is disrupted in disease.
The disease-relevance of epigenetics is now being appreciated. The core dogma of medical genetics is that genes cause disease through mutations. However, this assumes that the gene is switched on appropriately to start with. In the field of cancer research in particular, it is now appreciated that inappropriate silencing of tumour-suppressor genes or activation of oncogenes through epigenetic dysregulation is a major contributor to neoplasia.
We study how the epigenome is altered in cancer, type 2 diabetes mellitus, aging, and as a response to diet and other influences. It is our belief that epigenetic dysregulation will prove to be a much more common cause of complex human diseases than DNA mutations.
I’d like to thank the Greally lab for their ongoing research because, without it, epigenetics would not be where it is today. Greally research articles Link
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Topics: cancer, commentary, imprinting, methylation |
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