Lifeboat Foundation

Circa 2001

DNA methylation is a major epigenetic modification of the genome that regulates crucial aspects of its function. Genomic methylation patterns in somatic differentiated cells are generally stable and heritable. However, in mammals there are at least two developmental periods—in germ cells and in preimplantation embryos—in which methylation patterns are reprogrammed genome wide, generating cells with a broad developmental potential. Epigenetic reprogramming in germ cells is critical for imprinting; reprogramming in early embryos also affects imprinting. Reprogramming is likely to have a crucial role in establishing nuclear totipotency in normal development and in cloned animals, and in the erasure of acquired epigenetic information. A role of reprogramming in stem cell differentiation is also envisaged.

DNA methylation is one of the best-studied epigenetic modifications of DNA in all unicellular and multicellular organisms. In mammals and other vertebrates, methylation occurs predominantly at the symmetrical dinucleotide CpG (1–4). Symmetrical methylation and the discovery of a DNA methyltransferase that prefers a hemimethylated substrate, Dnmt1 , suggested a mechanism by which specific patterns of methylation in the genome could be maintained. Patterns imposed on the genome at defined developmental time points in precursor cells could be maintained by Dnmt1, and would lead to predetermined programs of gene expression during development in descendants of the precursor cells (5, 6). This provided a means to explain how patterns of differentiation could be maintained by populations of cells. In addition, specific demethylation events in differentiated tissues could then lead to further changes in gene expression as needed.

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Genetic Brain-Mapping of Autism.

The Brain Initiative is combining neuroscience with nanotechnology in the world’s biggest project to understand the mind. By Katharine Sanderson.

Yale researchers have discovered how metastasis, the spread of cancer cells throughout the body, is triggered on the molecular level, and have developed a tool with the potential to detect those triggers in patients with certain cancers. The discovery could lead to new ways for treating cancer.

The study was led by Andre Levchenko, the John C. Malone Professor of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Yale Systems Biology Institute at Yale’s West Campus. It was published June 26 in the journal Nature Communications. Levchenko is a member of the Yale Cancer Center.

One way metastasis occurs is through epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process that breaks neighboring cells apart from each other and sets them in motion. It’s been long assumed that chemical signals or genetic changes in the cells trigger EMT. But Levchenko’s research team found that it could be caused by a simple change in the texture of the extracellular matrix (ECM), which acts as a scaffold for cells. They discovered that an alignment of the matrix’s fibers (a common biological occurrence) can trigger the EMT process without or other stimuli.

In a groundbreaking treatment, cancer patients’ immune systems are being genetically reprogrammed to fight their terminal cancer for them, with promising results.

In the UK, a number of National Health Service (NHS) patients with lymphoma at King’s College Hospital have been given CAR-T, a “living drug” that is unique to each patient as it contains some of their own cells.

The scene resembles a typical blind speed-dating event: 13 women and 13 men, seated on either side of a bamboo screen in an upmarket Tokyo restaurant, are chatting in pairs on a strictly timed three-minute rotation.

But the doctor hovering on the fringes and the scientific documents held in the participant’s hands, however, offer a hint that this is no ordinary dating event: for everyone attending has undergone a DNA test in a bid to find their best romantic match.

Welcome to the world of DNA matchmaking. Forget hobbies, professions, ages or nose sizes: one critical new criteria for finding the perfect partner was recently added to Japan’s fast-paced dating world, with the launch of a new service that promises to find love based on genetic compatibility.

Russian Biologist Seeks To Edit Genes Of Human Embryos With CRISPR : Shots — Health News A Moscow scientist claims he has a safe way of editing genes in human embryos — a method that could protect resulting babies from being infected with HIV. Approval of the experiment seems unlikely.

Provides an introduction to quantum computing for non-physicists, as well as an introduction to genetic programming for non-computer-scientists. The book explores several ways in which genetic programming can support automatic quantum computer programming and presents detailed descriptions of specific techniques, along with several examples of their human-competitive performance on specific problems. Source code for the author’s QGAME quantum computer simulator is included as an appendix, and pointers to additional online resources furnish the reader with an array of tools for automatic quantum computer programming.

Gensight Biologics, a company researching – among other things – the movement of mitochondrial genetic information to the nucleus to treat hereditary genetic diseases (a strategy that could also have an impact on aging according to the SENS Research Foundation), has recently released data for its latest trial of GS010, a therapy against the blindness-causing genetic disease LHON.

Note: Patrick Deane holds shares in Gensight Biologics (EPA: SIGHT).