Combinatorial roles of nuclear receptors

Lately, Ive been thinking about how GR and CREB (activated by BDNF) could be regulating genes in a combinatorial fashion. I found this paper that talks about LXR, GR, and PPARs role in combinatorial regulation of inflammatory genes.

Thought it would be a nice review to guide our thinking about potential mechanism especially for some of the more complicated genes like CCR7.

http://www.nature.com/nri/journal/v6/n1/full/nri1748.html

Figure 4 Derepression as a prerequisite to activation of nuclear-receptor and inflammatory-response genes.

Fighting breast cancer with flaxseeds

An interesting article forwarded to me by a friend:

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/breast-cancer-fighting-breast-cancer-with-flaxseeds.html

Jill Bolte Taylor scientist with stroke

An interesting video on this scientists experience during a stroke that allowed her to better understand what appears to be affects of the left and right brains.

Extensive chromatin fragmentation improves enrichment of protein binding sites in chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577354/

As you guys know, yesterday I performed quite a few sonications and I started looking (again, as I do often) at papers that indicate the optimal size for sonicated DNA.

I found this paper. And it makes sense. It basically points out that with more sonications (~200bp) you increase the fold enrichment of your target by reducing the background or non-specific binding. But, you'll ip less (and probably purify less because the %efficiency we get back from the kits goes down with smaller fragments).

Happy ChIP'in!

Best Scientific Abstract I’ve Read in a Long Time

Why Scientists Are Smarter than Politicians

A nice article

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2095264,00.html

Race to Stop MS Fundraiser

Hey guys, I would really appreciate it if you guys could make it out to our fundraiser for the MS Society in honor of my sister-in-law. We're trying to raise $3000 and we're doing a dinner and live auction, it's going to be nice.

It's SAT Sept 24, 2011 from 3-6pm!

You can purchase tickets here (use the student price):

http://sugarplumbyz.ticketleap.com/auction/

We're having:
-LIVE JAZZ FROM STICKBONES AND THE BONE SQUAD
-UNLIMITED FOOD AND DRINKS
-DESERT BAR AND CUPCAKES
-GUEST SPEAKER FROM THE MS SOCIETY
-SPECIAL VIDEO TRAINING PRESENTATION
-LIVE AUCTION INCLUDING:
VACATION PACKAGES TO THE POCONOS,
VACATION PACKAGES TO NEW ORLEANS,
2 HOUR PHOTO SESSION,
STUDIO SUITE PROVIDED BY AFFINIA HOTELS,
PURSE COLLECTION BY BLEU JONES,
CLOTHING COLLECTION BY LILLY WHITE
AND MUCH MORE!

If you can't make it but still want to support we have a direct donation link too. Thanks!
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/sugarplumbyz

In Utero Intraventricular Injection and Electroporation of E15 Mouse Embryos

So, I'm planning to do this experiment with Freddy (my collaborator) to look at the effect of GR phospho-mutants in an invivo mouse model (instead of doing a knock-in mouse which takes much much longer).


http://www.jove.com/details.php?id=239

Work ethic: The 24/7 lab

 Working weekends. Leaving at midnight. Friday evening meetings. Does science come out the winner?

Not that we under- (or over-) work...but the article provides an interesting perspective.

"an analysis of survey data collected by the US National Research Council on 11,231 PhD scientists...found that the average scientist worked about 50 hours a week, and in general the more hours an individual put in, the more publications he or she cranked out."

A must listen about ChIP and TF binding

Chaowei  pointed out a Cell paper to me yesterday from Gordon Hager's Lab continuing (and publishing) what they talked about at the CSH Nuclear Receptor's meeting.


There's audio on the home page that I think is a great preview to thinking about how TF (esp steriod nuclear receptors) act on DNA. The other link is for the actual article.

http://www.cell.com/

http://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674%2811%2900761-6

NIH solicits opinions (from you) on biomedical workforce

want to have your say?

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-11-106.html

Not looking good for me (or Chaowei)...

this report came out today in Science...

Race, Ethnicity, and NIH Research Awards

"...After controlling for the applicant’s educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics, we find that black applicants remain 10 percentage points less likely than whites to be awarded NIH research funding."

Looks like we have a lot of work to do to change the paradigm.

A little closer...

AIDS Researchers Isolate New Potent and Broadly Effective Antibodies Against HIV

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2011) — A team of researchers at and associated with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), The Scripps Research Institute, the biotechnology company Theraclone Sciences and Monogram Biosciences Inc., a LabCorp company, report in the current issue of Nature the isolation of 17 novel antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad spectrum of variants of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Super cool.

Electronic tattoos!
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/electronic-skin-grafts-gadgets-t.html

The Status of Science: We Have No-one to Blame but Ourselves

I thought this article was right on point. It's about the status of science as it relates to public outreach and education.

...If you get a job somewhere other than a research university or a national lab, people within the field will cock their heads sideways when you tell them, like a dog hearing an odd noise. Actively seeking to be at a smaller school that gives greater weight to teaching is often regarded like some sort of character flaw, and forget about outreach to the general public. Too much involvement in education and outreach activities is often looked at as a sign that you can't handle "real" science.

Check out the rest of the article HERE.