Research Highlights in 2018

Filter By:

Article Type
Year
  • A study in Cell reports the development of a synthetic, modular and programmable read–write system that serves as a platform for programming epigenetic functions in mammalian cells and can aid the analysis of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms.

    • Michelle Trenkmann
    Research Highlight
  • Proximity-CLIP, a method that combines proximity-based protein biotinylation and UV crosslinking, profiles the transcriptome and ribonucleoproteins in subcellular compartments.

    • Linda Koch
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature Genetics reports the first genome-wide significant loci for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and implicates biologically informative genes, such as FOXP2, as contributors to its aetiology.

    • Dorothy Clyde
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Cell examines the pervasiveness of a classic form of non-genetic inheritance involving transposable element DNA methylation in mice. It reports that non-genetic inheritance is likely to be the exception rather than the rule across other loci genome-wide.

    • Darren J. Burgess
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature shows the feasibility of using the CRISPR–Cas9 system for efficient and precise genotypic correction of pathogenic mutations without a donor template.

    • Ross Cloney
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature Medicine reports the DNA methylome and transcriptome of an individual, and suggests that changes in the methylome and transcriptome might be associated with chronic and acute health conditions, respectively.

    • Katharine H. Wrighton
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Science reports the genome-wide chromatin accessibility profiles across 23 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas and notably increases the number of known gene regulatory elements.

    • Michelle Trenkmann
    Research Highlight
  • Two new studies in Nature provide insight into the role of nucleosomes in gene regulation. One describes the genome-wide organization of nucleosomes and the other details how transcription factor binding to DNA is affected by the presence of nucleosomes.

    • Dorothy Clyde
    Research Highlight
  • Two studies in Nature describe the full data set of the UK Biobank resource, which contains genome-wide genetic data, clinical measurements and health records for ~500,000 individuals, and reveal insights into the brain’s genetic architecture.

    • Orli G. Bahcall
    Research Highlight
  • A new study reports the ‘Tabula Muris’, an atlas of single-cell RNA sequencing data from >100,000 cells across 20 mouse tissues.

    • Darren J. Burgess
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature Genetics reports the analysis of transcriptomes of the ageing brain and highlights the impact of genetic variation underlying altered mRNA splicing in Alzheimer disease.

    • Linda Koch
    Research Highlight
  • Two studies report the application of high-throughput genome editing approaches to engineer many precise genetic variants and determine their functional impact in human and yeast cells.

    • Michelle Trenkmann
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature characterizes the genome of Denisova 11 and reveals her to be a first-generation offspring of Neanderthal and Denisovan parents, thereby providing direct evidence of genetic mixing between genetically distinct groups of archaic hominins.

    • Dorothy Clyde
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Nature describes RNA velocity, which is a computational method to derive dynamic gene expression information from static single-cell RNA sequencing data. It provides valuable insights into developmental trajectories of cells.

    • Darren J. Burgess
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Science reports the successful application of CRISPR–Cas genome editing to track and reconstruct developmental lineages in the mouse.

    • Linda Koch
    Research Highlight
  • A study in Cell challenges the existing notion of the evolution of FOXP2 as a human-specific language gene.

    • Rebecca Furlong
    Research Highlight
  • A Nature Genetics study reports the findings of a genome-wide associationstudy of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals.

    • Michelle Trenkmann
    Research Highlight
  • A new RNA sequencing technology reported in Science uses hydrogel-tissue chemistry to enable gene expression profiling in intact tissues.

    • Linda Koch
    Research Highlight
  • Insulin signalling underlies the evolution and regulation of eusocial behaviours in ants, posits a recent study in Science.

    • Linda Koch
    Research Highlight