“Each cell in your body has the same DNA, but they don’t all follow the same instructions. Some become blood cells; others become brain cells or muscle tissue. But if the DNA has a mistake or the cells turn on the wrong set of genes, that can lead to disease. So how do cells decide …
“Our results show that functional conservation between human and mouse is not restricted to protein-coding genes,” says Andreas Pfenning, joint first author of the study and a postdoc at MIT. “This opens up the use of epigenomics methods in model organisms to study an inaccessible organ like the brain, and how it changes in response …
“‘By studying the epigenomes of cells, we come to learn about how they became what they are,’ says Christopher Glass, a genomics scientist at UC San Diego who was not involved in the work. And unlike a person’s genome sequence, the epigenome can readily change in response to diet, disease, and environment factors, allowing cells—and …
“THERE is not much point in being multicellular if all your cells are the same. It is division of labour and specialisation of cell function which gives animals and plants their edge in the struggle for life. How that specialisation comes about, though, is understood only hazily. Most cells in any given body have the …
“Several studies in the Nature family journals are offering a look at results from the National Institutes of Health’s Roadmap Epigenomics Consortium, an NIH Common Fund-supported effort to untangle regulatory features in human cells.” View more …
“More than 200 scientists working on an ambitious federal project have begun to understand the complicated system of switches that regulates genes, turning some on and others off, making some glow brightly while others dim. They hope these discoveries, described in two dozen papers released on Wednesday, will eventually lead to a deeper understanding of diseases …
“Boston scientists have developed a technique that can trace a cancer cell back to the tissue where it started, raising hope for one day improving treatment for mysterious cancers of unknown origin.” View more …
“Scientists have produced a new family tree for nearly all species of birds alive today, drawing on a massive DNA analysis to gain insights into evolutionary history.” View more …
“Researchers have gained new insights into the brain by decoding the genome of the zebra finch, a songbird whose males learn a single love song from their fathers that they repeat through life.” View more …
“Scientists have created a ‘blueprint’ of the genome of a songbird. The advance, described in the journal Nature, could reveal some of the evolutionary secrets of vocal learning in animals, including humans.” View more …
Neurogenomics Laboratory