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MRC Scientists Appointed to the RSE's Young Academy.
Sept 2011
Dr Ian Overton of the MRC Human Genetics
Unit's Biomedical Systems Analysis Section and Dr Jim Wilson Centre for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh were recently appointed to the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Young Academy, amongst 68 founding members selected from 336 well-qualified applicants.
The Young Academy will provide a platform for the best and most forward-looking people of their generation to develop a distinctive, coherent and influential "voice" to address many of the challenging issues facing society.
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Wt1 Flip-Flops Chromatin in a CTCF Domain.
Oct 2011
Dr Abdelkader Essafi and colleagues in Prof Nick Hastie’s laboratory at the MRC Human Genetics Unit elucidates a new mechanism of tissue-specific transcriptional regulation termed “chromatin flip-flop” that is mediated mainly by the insulator barrier function of CCCTC-binding factor (CCTF) (Essafi et al, Developmental Cell (2011) Sep 13;21(3):559-74).
Essafi et al define the chromatin flip-flop as “the reciprocal switching of chromatin structure between two insulating CTCF sites in a tissue specific manner that is regulated by the same transcription factor”.
The work has been highlighted in the same issue of Developmental Cell by a preview written by Dr B.V. Gurudatta and Prof. Victor Corces. Prof Corces is an HHMI investigator and a world expert on insulator proteins, tissue-specific gene expression and nuclear organisation. Commenting on the work, Gurudatta and Corces said, “The findings of Essafi et al. (2011) now convincingly demonstrate that CTCF can also have barrier insulator activity”.(Gurudatta and Corces Developmental Cell (2011) Sep13;21(3):389-90).
The work was supported by the Wellcome Trust through a Beit Memorial Fellowship to Dr Abdelkader Essafi, as well as the MRC and EuReGene, a Framework 6 program grant by the EU.
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