An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

Watch the Nobel Prize winner, Sir John Gurdon, speak about winning the prize and about his revolutionary work on nuclear reprogramming.

The 52' documentary film « The hidden life of our genes », written and directed by Hervé Nisic, produced by Pierre-François Decouflé (Heliox Films) with the support of the 7th framework research programme of the European Union, has won the best film award at the International Life Sciences Film Festival of Praha.

The film has been awarded by Mr Peter Bendl, Cezch minister of agriculture during a ceremony held at the University of Prague on October 17h, 2012.

This film presents the European research on epigenetics in a premonitory echo of the Nobel Price of biology 2012 recently awarded to Mr Shinya Yamanaka and Mr John B. Gurdon.

Production: heliox.fr

Best video explanation we've seen of epigenetics and its implications for human health, outlined in simple, understandable terms. From the BBC.

Hear firsthand impressions about the EpiGeneSys course on systems biology from MD/PhD student Andrew Deonarine.

32 Masters and PhD students from all over Europe, many of them from EpiGeneSys labs, came to Paris to take part in the 8th edition of the popular course at the Institute Curie. For a whole week the participants attended scientific lectures, both didactic and presenting the latest research, listened to talks on topics such as the peer review process or how to optimize the chances for publication, presented and discussed papers, learnt about careers outside the research establishment and tried their hand at transporting principles of epigenetics via the vehicle of art. Not only students benefited from their experience at the course, but lecturers did as well. Stephan Beck and Andreas Ladurner comment on their experience in the short video presented here, as do some of the course participants.

Andreas Ladurner gave a lecture, "Rapid nuclear remodeling and signaling upon DNA damage" for the 8th Annual Epigenetics Course held at Institut Curie in March of 2012.

Amanda Fisher gave a lecture, "Epigenetic reprogramming" for the 8th Annual Epigenetics Course held at Institut Curie in March of 2012.

Ritwick Sawarkar, Cem Sievers, Renato Paro. Cell. 11 May 2012 Pages 807–818.

Podcast interview with Renato Paro and Ritwick Sawarkar about their recent publication in Cell.

“ Its becoming clear that systems biology is something that epigenetics is going to have to get a handle on ” - Edith Heard, Group Leader, Institut Curie, Paris, France

Elphège P. Nora, Bryan R. Lajoie, Edda G. Schulz, Luca Giorgetti, Ikuhiro Okamoto, Nicolas Servant, Tristan Piolot, Nynke L. van Berkum, Johannes Meisig, John Sedat, Joost Gribnau Emmanuel Barillot, Nils Blüthgen, Job Dekker & Edith Heard. Nature. 2012 Apr 11.

Interview with Elphège P. Nora, Edda G. Schulz, and Luca Giorgetti from Edith Heard's lab at Institut Curie in Paris, France about their recent publication in Nature.

Hiroyuki Sasaki's keynote lecture was on the regulatory network of small RNAs and DNA methylation in mouse germ cells. They've recently shown a role for piRNAs in paternal imprinting in male spermatogonia, in work published in Science in 2011.

Susan Gasser spoke about nuclear organization in cell type commitment in C.elegans at the EpiGeneSys Annual Meeting in Vienna in November, 2011. They've established a method to visually observe gene tethering at the nuclear envelope via live imaging, and have contributed important mechanistic insights using this technique, which Susan elaborates on in her keynote address.

Sexton T, Yaffe E, Kenigsberg E, Bantignies F, Leblanc B, Hoichman M, Parrinello H, Tanay A, Cavalli G.
Cell. 2012 Jan 18. [Epub ahead of print]

Podcast interview of Giacomo Cavalli and Amos Tanay about their recent publication in Cell.