Sigma BioBlogs

“Epigenetics is one of the more exciting things going on in biology right now.”  Such is the opinion of our epigenetics market segment manager, Shannon Dempsey who commented for the recently published editorial article on Biocompare.  There has definitely been an increase in epigenetics research within the past few years.  Is it worthy of the hype?

Are you new to epigenetics?

Epigenetics is the study of stable, heritable changes to gene expression that result without altering the DNA sequence. Modifications that impact gene expression may include DNA methylation, histone modification and RNA regulation and researchers are finding that these modifications are impacting numerous biological processes including replication, transcription and repair.

Check out this video to learn more!

Are you a seasoned epigenetics researcher?

You may be interested in our broad range of tools for epigenetics research including kits for bisulfite modification and quantifying DNA methylation, as well as a full suite of antibodies for gene regulation.  Plus, this Fall, we plan to release a portfolio of highly active, histone modifying enzymes.  The portfolio will include nearly 100 methyltransferases, demethylases and deacetylases.  Now, that is exciting.

One of our goals with the Your Favorite Gene tool is to create one place for as much information as possible about a specific gene or protein of interest.

Here we highlight gene regulation for hypoxia inducible factor 1 or HIF1A.

To create the gene regulation viewer, the Sigma Life Science bioinformatics team pulled together data for each gene related to the conservation pattern of sequence alignment for human, mouse, and rat, the calculated CpG island, and the DNA methylation patterns where relevant.

Please take a look with your favorite gene!  And notice that there is always a spot to give feedback on every page of YFG. We would love to hear your suggestions.

AACR is over 100 years old, with a membership of 30,000+.  The membership is quite inclusive, with a mixture of people from basic science research, clinical research, and also physicians, patients, survivors, and patient advocates all intent on studying and learning more about how to stop cancer.

We got the chance to meet many of them, and a few answered the question “Where does your bio begin? (You can still enter your video too!).

Communication, collaboration, research and education are all a part of AACR’s mission, with 6 Cancer journals for the thousands of scientist who are members, and also CR magazine, to provide information directly relevant for cancer patients, survivors, and patient advocates.

For AACR 2010, the volcanic ash prevented many European presenters from attending, so AACR shifted and met the need by patching the speakers through via video and teleconference.  Some of the recorded talks are here.

Plus an amazing twitter feed which is still active 4 days post-meeting as bloggers sift through their notes and communicate the information that they gathered during the meeting.

The science has come a long way too.  Many traditional topics were under exploration, such as studies around Ras and p53,  there  were also discussions about newer technologies for  such as microRNAs, using biomarkers for early detection,  nanotechnology, and systems biology.

Some blogs of note:

Sally Church’s blog. This lady knows the cancer community.  I got the chance to have coffee with her and she knew half the researchers walking in and out of the conference hall.

Nature writer Brian Maher has a series of short blogs about the sessions he attended.

Another look at Bert Vogelstein’s talk…

This AACR video details some fascinating statistics on cancer research

John Rinn is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, but not like the professors I remember.   Those guys were 40 years older than me, and their knowledge was gained from 20-30 years in the lab.  John Rinn knows cool skater and snowboarder lingo (moguls, lines, turns, trix), is the same age as me, and his bioknowledge comes from playing with new technologies to demonstrate the unthinkable.

His Nature publication on LincRNAs (large intervening non-coding RNAs)  has RNA experts divided over whether or not non-coding RNA’s are functional.   By developing technology to look closely at non-coding RNA’s, his lab has identified over 5000 LincRNAs (large intervening non-coding RNAs).  They are functioning RNA’s that play a part in cell cycle regulation, and maintaining embryonic stem cell pluripotency.  Dr. Rinn is also investigating epigenetic aspects, which he describes as Genomic Origami.

The beginning of bio for Rinn was not a direct path.  He chose a university based on its proximity to mountains for snowboarding…and his life long hero is middle to long distance runner Steve Prefontaine…whose motto is “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift”

Thanks to his passion for new types of runs in snowboarding, Rinn injured himself and was bound to a hospital bed, and that’s where science really started to open up for him.

John Rinn gets some air

WBB: Where does Bio Begin for you?

JR: With coffee!  I spend 9-10am typically as an hour of reflection.

WBB: Interesting.  I’ve heard it said by more than one scientist that downtime is when great breakthroughs and ideas happen. Is that true for you?

JR: Yes. I actually get the best ideas when I go snowboarding.  It’s then that I have the time for my mind to drift, and dream up new experiments.

WBB: So you feel that snowboarding and science go well together?

JR: Yes…In snowboarding, if you do the same thing over and over again…it just gets old.  So you try different combinations of tricks…from a cliff to a mogul through trees to another mogul then jump off a cliff…that makes a beautiful run.  It’s the same with experimentation, except this time instead of looking for lines down the mountain you are trying to uncover beauty and truth by combining different experiments.  One experiment is not the key, it’s the “line of experiments”.  You need a combination that is synergistic.

WBB: So snowboarding and science do have a lot in common!

JR: Yes! And pain is always a part of the learning.  In snowboarding it’s injuries.  In science it’s in negative experiments.

WBB: Be careful out there!

This post brought to you by the following Sigma Life Science Bioareas

• Biomapping- Genomics tools and resources
• Epigenetics tools and resources
• Bioreprogramming -Stem Cell Biology reprogramming tools and resources