Search Results for: pediatric glioma

Reciprocal CRISPR gene editing in pediatric glioma: defining mechanisms & testing drugs

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reciprocal-CRISPR-mutant-H3.3

My lab’s new paper in Communications Biology focused on high-grade pediatric glioma that have mutant histone variant H3.3 and we did something fairly novel that we are calling reciprocal CRISPR. Kids with these tumors have a near zero survival rate within a few years of diagnosis so we as a field desperately need something new to give […]

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Weekly reads: DNA methylation, H3 K27M in glioma, memory wipe, teeth

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DNA methylation

I’ve been more interested in histones and their modifications versus DNA methylation when it comes to epigenetics and chromatin. In part this has just been because I have studied histones so much more. For example, we have been knocking out the two histone variant H3.3 genes, H3f3a and H3f3b, now for a decade. My lab also

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Are glioma stem cells a path to better outcomes?

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Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma and other related malignant glioma tumors including diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) are some of the most devastating of all human cancers, and glioma stem cells may contribute to the lethality. You can see an image of a glioma (the white area in the brain scan) from Wikipedia above. These brain tumors usually kill

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Weekend reads: WaPo blows it on COVID, paper-mill detector, adult pluripotent stem cells

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"Hofstenia miamia, three-banded panther worms. Credit: Mansi Srivastava and Kathleen Mazza-Curll"

Imagine writing or editing an article for the WaPo about risky, unproven medical interventions for COVID that desperate patients might consider. Then you link directly to the websites selling this stuff in your article. What the heck? WaPo links to risky long COVID “treatments” By linking, you not only are driving customers to these firms,

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What do sperm have to do with brain tumors?

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H3.3

Sometimes in science there are unexpected threads tying seemingly very different things together. Unraveling the knots in these threads can lead to new insights into important developmental processes and mechanisms of disease. My lab studies epigenomic and transcription factors including a molecule called histone variant H3.3 (more here on H3.3). H3.3 binds to the actual

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Weekly reads: heterochromatin, H3.3, Mesoblast bump

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N-myc, heterochromatin

My lab is focused in part on chromatin states in stem cells and cancer including heterochromatin. In fact, my lab’s website is chromatin.com. Heterochromatin is dense, often inactive chromatin. By H&E staining and electron microscopy, heterochromatin looks dark compared to the rest of the nucleus, largely composed of euchromatin. Toward the end of my postdoc

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Weekly reads: our new brain tumor paper, levitation, dear doctor, Japan, more

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brain tumor, H3.3 K27M, ASCL1

There’s nothing quite like getting a new paper out as a scientist running a research lab so this week we can celebrate our new pediatric brain tumor study. I’ll start the weekly reads with that paper. Of course, getting new grants is amazing too but there’s more of a feel of completion after a paper

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Weekly The Niche reads: lab-grown embryos & thymus, more

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es cells embryos matrigel the niche sm

Today’s The Niche recommended weekly reads post includes both primary papers and also a few media pieces. I’m especially interested in the first piece on making more complex embryo-like structures from ES cells. This is a long way from just making embryoid bodies or EBs. At the end of the post I discuss an article

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