An Interview with Patricia Labosky

By Carla B. Mellough

Featured Lab Article

Patricia Labosky,

‘In college I had a couple of professors that I would just love to listen to in lectures. It became clear to me that these essential questions in cell and developmental biology were important to me, and the way I wanted to focus my career.´

The fountain of youth; Choose your partner wisely.

By Carla B. Mellough

The secret to eternal youth has been under pursuit for centuries. But now, results reported in Nature by a group at Harvard University shed new light on just how the ageing process might be co-ordinated across tissues and, astonishingly, that we may be able to reverse it (Mayack et al., 2010).

Human iPSC Generation – Nothing Common in “Site” for Lentiviral Integration

by Stuart P. Atkinson

Traditional techniques for the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) require the use of integrating viral particles to deliver the required factors for efficient reprogramming. Reprogramming efficiency, however, lies in the region of only 0.02 to 1% of target cells, and this falls to much lower levels when non-integrational means of reprogramming factor delivery or expression are used. The low efficiency observed with integrational delivery suggests that other factors are involved in the reprogramming process, whilst the reduction of efficiency with non-integrational methods suggests that integration of the viral vectors into the host genome may be important. This may be due to prolonged expression of integrated vectors or the lack of dilution of the vectors upon cell proliferation. Another theory is that insertion of the viral vectors into the host genome somehow enhances the efficiency of reprogramming by perturbation of nearby gene expression. This would suggest that within each target cell type, iPSCs may have common viral integration sites.

Dual AID for Reprogramming and DNA Methylation

By Stuart P. Atkinson

Although induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) generation continues to forge ahead, the early molecular mechanisms behind the reprogramming process remain poorly understood. In an attempt to understand these mechanisms, Bhutani and colleagues utilised heterokaryon formation as their model system rather than iPSC generation or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), which represent more complex, time consuming systems. The authors generated heterokaryons by fusing mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) with a GFP reporter gene and human fibroblasts (hFFs) with a DsRed reporter gene, generating a dual-colour heterokaryon that can be sorted to high purity for analysis. In this system, the pluripotent genetic program dominates, and therefore should have an affect on the somatic human genetic program. In this way, generation of an interspecies heterokaryon may allow for reprogramming in the presence of all pluripotency factors, as supplied by the mESC genome, and synchronous initiation of reprogramming. Further, species-specific mRNA and promoter analysis allows the distinction between specific activities occurring in the mESCs and the hFFs nucleus.

Keystone Symposia

Place: Keystone, CO
Date: 15^th to 20^th February 2010

Keystone Symposia has served the bioscience community for 38 years by providing a forum to publicise high quality scientific data in a relaxing environment conducive to the establishment of links between researchers. One of the best features of Keystone meetings is that they are not too large and one gets a chance to talk to some of the best researchers in the field and more often than not they are willing to share as yet unpublished results. The current meeting which took place in the Keystone conference centre was no exception to this.

An Interview with Christine Mummery

By Carla B. Mellough

Featured Lab Article

Christine Mummery, "After a PhD in Biophysics, I became more interested in biology than physics but had to try and find a bridge, a way in. That was through the study of ion channels in an electrically active cell, neurons from neuroblastoma."