Comments on Science and Technology
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In a recent publication in Cell Report Medicine (November 19, 2024), the authors explore a novel strategy to prevent T-cell exhaustion in the context of immuno-oncology. While adoptive cell therapies involving in vitro modified T cells can avoid immune exhaustion, the uncontrolled proliferation of these modified cells may lead to severe side effects, including potential…
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Inferring gene regulatory networks (GRNs) from data such as knockout screens or single-cell assays has many applications. In particular, it helps identify biological mechanisms and enhances the discovery power of GWAS studies. New computational methods continue to improve these results. A gene regulatory network is a directed graph where each arc A → B indicates…
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This year, RECOMB was held at MIT, within walking distance from my place, so I simply HAD to attend. I went to the satellite workshops this weekend. It was great to see new results in computational biology and potential future methods. Today’s science can be tomorrow’s methodology.
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Mattei, Bailly, and Meissner provide an insightful review of CpG methylation in Trends in Genetics, tracing from its discovery in 1925 to current knowledge and outstanding questions. Originally a defense mechanism in bacteria against bacteriophages, DNA methylation has evolved significantly. What fascinates me most is the regulatory diversity of CpG methylation across the genome, which…
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Google AI scientists teamed up with Liverpool FC coaches to create a strategy for corner kicks during a football game. I wonder if Liverpool FC will test it in real life; that could be exciting. Imagine a match between Google-supported Liverpool FC and ChatGPT-supported Arsenal. Given the number of people in Google in this project…
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Hot new insights on pioneer transcription factors are reviewed by Barral and Zaret in the latest Trends in Genetics. Cells adopt new roles during cell differentiation or tumor disregulation, and it is well known that this change is guided by master transcription factors, known as pioneer factors (PFs) that can open/activate regulatory elements, active promoters…
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Standard methods sometimes produce nonsense. In 2020, researchers of UC La Jolla published in Nature their discovery that microbiome present in cancer samples identifies their cancer identity and type, using authoritative TCGA data base, hg19 genome assembly and Kraken pipeline to identify microbial reads in TCGA samples. Currently, a group of (mostly) Johns Hopkins researchers…
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An R-loop reorganizes a small section of a chromosome: DNA strands are separated and one of them is bound to its complementary RNA sequence. They appear frequently during elongation, and for many genes, they are essential for their proper expression. However, exposed single DNA strand breaks easily, and sometimes the second strand breaks too. When…
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There is a big excitement about Nature paper by Lopera et al. published on May 15. Development of Alzheimer disease and resulting dementia involves the emergence and growth of amyloid plaque that impedes the function of neurons. After regulatory dysregulation leads to plaque formation, the symptoms are hard to stop and reverse. However, a gain…
Jieun Jeong (정지은), Ph.D. 