Genes are not enough to explain the difference between a skin cell and a stem cell, a leaf cell and a root cell, or the complexity of the human brain. Genes don’t explain the subtle ways in which your parents’ environment before you were conceived might affect your offspring.
Ryan Lister’s work transcends plants, animals and humans. Credit: The University of Western Australia
Another layer of complexity—the epigenome— is at work determining when and where genes are turned on and off.
Ryan Lister is unravelling this complexity. He’s created ways of mapping the millions of molecular markers of where genes have been switched on or off, has made the first maps of these markers in plants and humans, and has revealed key differences between the markers in cells with different fates.
Stem cells generated from adult cells still retain a memory of their past despite being reprogrammed, Australian scientists have found. Now scientists think they can teach the cells to forget their past.
Not satisfied with transforming plant biology and stem cell science, The University of Western Australia’s Ryan Lister is also tacking the human brain.
A Melbourne scientist is harvesting the memory found in reprogrammed adult cells to develop cell therapy techniques that have the potential to cure a number of diseases.
iPS cells expressing a green fluorescent protein indicating the reactivation of the Oct4 pluripotent gene. Credit: Jose Polo
Jose Polo, of Monash University, has found that induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells don’t lose all their memory after reprogramming, flagging the possibility that a better understanding of these stem cells will aid regenerative medicine.
“Basically an iPS cell derived from muscle is more likely to reprogram back into muscle cells, while iPS cells derived from skin will generate skin cells,” says Jose. “And this could influence what type of iPS cell you might choose to generate a specific cell type.”
Marnie Blewitt wants to understand how genes are controlled. Credit: Sam D’Agostino, SDP Photo
Dr Marnie Blewitt wants to know how a human being is made: how does a single fertilised egg develop into an adult with millions of cells performing a myriad of different functions.
“How does a cell know which of its 30,000 or so genes should be active and which should be dormant?” says Marnie, a researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.
These optically barcoded nanoparticles could transform cancer diagnosis.
Blood tests using nanoparticles carrying molecules which can detect breast cancer biomarkers could save millions of lives and open the way to mass screening for many cancers.
Prof. Matt Trau, of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering & Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland, and his team are using a combination of nanotechnology and molecular biology in the project, funded by a five-year $5 million grant from the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
The Walter & Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne
Marnie Blewitt wants to know how a human being is made: how does a single fertilised egg develop into an adult with millions of cells performing a myriad of different functions. It’s the hottest issue in genetics, and one that’s close to her right now as she is expecting her first child soon.
