epigenetics

Among quacks, epigenetics is the new quantum theory. I know I've said that before, but it's worth saying again in response to a new quack I've just discovered, courtesy of an article in The Daily Mail Fail by one Dr. Sara Gottfried pimping her books and health empire, From taking a sauna to drinking pinot noir, a fascinating book by a hormone doctor reveals how to... switch off your bad genes and live longer. Epigenetics. She's talking about epigenetics. Of course, she keeps using that word. I do not think it means what she thinks it means. Indeed, if what's in this article is a taste of what…

I’m sure that most of you watched the Presidential debate on Monday night, just as I did. Over the years, these debates have always always painful for me to watch, given the candidates’ tendency to answer the question they want to answer rather than the question actually answered; to find ways to spew prepackaged talking points into answers, whether they’re related to the question or not; and, above all, to see how much spin they can get away with. Particularly annoying is when they pander to their base with particularly brain dead bon mots. Candidates from both parties do it, of course, but…

Epigenetics. As I've described before, to alternative medicine practitioners, epigenetics seems to mean something akin to what the word "quantum" means: Magic. I've covered, for example, the woo-filled stylings of Deepak Chopra invoking things like "quantum consciousness," and seemingly for quite a few years the best way to slap a patina of "sciencey"-sounding credibility on a pseudoscientific medical treatment has been to add the word "quantum" to it. Perhaps the epitome of this tendency was the infamous Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface promoted by a rather—shall we say?—flamboyant…

I happen to be in Houston right now attending the Society of Surgical Oncology annual meeting. Sadly, I'm only about 12 miles away from the lair of everybody's favorite faux clinical researcher and purveyor of a cancer cure that isn't, Stanislaw Burzynski. Such is life. In any case, this conference is all about cancer and how we treat it surgically. That includes prophylactic surgery designed to prevent cancer in people at very high risk. Prophylactic surgery to prevent cancer is never a decision that should be undertaken lightly and almost never is, rants from quacks notwithstanding that…

A paper was recently brought to my attention via a Creationist. It was the usual 'HAHAHA! Oh you silly Creationist! This paper says the opposite of what you think it says!', and I was going to write a blog post along that usual theme. Fazale Rana, 'Vice President' of 'Research and Apologetics' at Reasons to Believe said on Facebook: What happens when the best evidence for biological evolution becomes evidence for intelligent deign? Retroviruses, long thought to be junk DNA, play a role in regulating gene expression in the brain (link to ScienceDaily about the article) The article has some…

Once again, there are three new pieces online on our website, each wonderful in its own way. But Haiku just didn’t seem to fit this batch. So, with apologies to the scientists, here are three limericks on the newest Institute research. As before, follow the links to get to our website. (Incidentally, there is some precedent for limerick writing at the Weizmann Institute. The late Prof. Amikam Aharoni, who also wrote some serious stuff on ferromagnetism, was known for his limericks.)   The Quasar There once was a baby black hole That went for a short little stroll It zigged and it zagged…

After yesterday, I really hadn't planned on writing about Angelina Jolie and her decision to undergo bilateral mastectomies again, except perhaps as a more serious piece next week on my not-so-super-secret other blog where The Name of the Doctor is revealed on a weekly basis. As I mentioned yesterday, there are a number of issues about the decision that could use my professional attention, from the process, to the evidence, to the issue of how the surgery was handled. Oh, and if I do decide to do that I'm sure I won't be able to resist a mention of some of the quackery that oozed out from…

I cannot deal with the fact Tasmanian Devils are being driven to extinction by a contagious, untreatable cancer. I cannot deal with it. Click on the first link to see the science behind the tragedy: Numbers arent enough Click on the second link to see why I cannot deal with this, psychologically: Oh no… Cedric died. I am crying remembering Cedric... I saw him as Arnies brother-from-down-under... crap... Anne-Marie Hodge from Endless Forms just wrote about new findings about Tasmanian Devils and their cancer: Devil Dispatch: MHC the Key to Contagious Cancer Vaccine? I took away another idea:…

*sigh* *heaviersigh* One of the many problems we have when treating HIV patients is that HIV can hide (latent). So a cell can be infected with HIV, but not show any signs of being infected. The HIV provirus is just chillin in the host cell DNA, not making any viral proteins/babby viruses, so the individuals immune system doesnt even have a chance to kill it. Periodically, those 'hidden' proviruses will activate, and make more viruses. Its fun to look at in a phylogenetic tree-- alovasudden, a virus collected at, say, 5 years post infection, looks like the viruses that were circulating 1 year…

Epigenetics. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. I realize I overuse that little joke, but I can't help but think that virtually every time I see advocates of so-called "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) or, as it's known more commonly now, "integrative medicine" discussing epigenetics. All you have to do to view mass quantities of misinterpretation of the science of epigenetics is to type the word into the "search" box of a website like Mercola.com or NaturalNews.com, and you'll be treated to large numbers of articles touting the latest…

A couple of days ago, I did one of my usual bits of pontification about alternative medicine, this time around pointing out how religion facilitates the magical thinking that undergirds so much pseudoscientific medicine and how the belief systems that underlie so so much of alternative medicine resembel the belief systems that underlie religion. However, in retrospect, I suspect that I might have gone a little too far. Although the two share many aspects, alternative medicine is not in general a religion (with the possible exception of reiki, which, for all intents and purposes, is faith…

Let me make this clear, for like the millionth time: You do not want transposable elements in your genome (DNA transposons, ERVs, LINEs, SINEs, etc) to be active and functional. You are happy, happy, happy that these elements are junk. Yes, occasionally a transposable element has been domesticated for the hosts purposes. Yes, I know, Creationists think this means every last nucleotide to be there For A Reason by The Designer. But if what they wanted was a reality, we would all be dead right now. Expression of the vast, vast majority of transposable elements is a sign that something has…

Quick recap of ERVs for new readers of ERV (or long-time readers who have forgotten!)-- ERVs are retroviruses that accidentally infected an egg/sperm cell, and became a permanent part of that egg/sperms DNA. That egg/sperm then went on to successfully generate a viable embryo, and because that retrovirus was part of the egg/sperms DNA, it also becomes a permanent part of the organisms DNA. Though this is a very very rare, totally accidental event, on an evolutionary time-scale, random events have happened quite a few times, to the point where a large chunk of your, *your* DNA, is…

If there is one thing that terrifies me as a blogger, its noticing site-hits from HuffPo. It means one of two things-- 1-- They stole some of your content 2-- One of their kook 'writers' linked to you, and a shitstorm of crazy is about to invade Yeah... I noticed some hits from HuffPo yesterday... I stopped everything I was doing to investigate, and it turns out things were a lot funnier than I was anticipating. Some random weirdos wrote a post on meditation, and included this stupid bit: Recent developments in the biological sciences indicate that environmental influences can alter a newly…

I think understanding the basics of inheritance is pretty easy for most people - the traits of parents are passed down from parents to offspring. Simple! Humans have known and exploited this fact for thousands of years. When Gregor Mendel came along, he meticulously worked out some mathematical rules for inheritance in peas, and we now know that these rules work (more or less) from plants, to ants to elephants, and we know the molecular basis lies in the replication and transmission of DNA. There's far more nuance than you learn in basic biology, of course. Most visible traits aren't governed…

A long time ago, I think on Pharyngula, Richard Dawkins said something that really pissed me off. Its been so long ago I cant find the right comment thread anymore, but Dawkins said something regarding epigenetics along the lines of "Um... isnt this just a fancy word for transcription regulation? Stuff weve been studying for years and years..." And I went all WARBLEGARBLE "OMG NO EPIGENETICS IS SO NEW AND DIFFERENT AND SO MUCH COOLER THAN TRANSCRIPTIONAL REGULATION OMFG RICHARD DAWKINS UR SUCH A N00B!!!" Yeah... Yeah...... I totally get it now. Ive slowly been getting it since that…

As Carl Zimmer recently (and rightly) pointed out at the end of an article on epigenetics, while the concept of being able to alter our epigenetic profiles for therapeutic purposes is a really attractive concept, our current epigenetic therapy options are very, very messy. Like I said last week: Lemme give you an example. Lets say we find out that in people with Ke$ha Disease, their GTiM (Good Taste in Music) gene is underexpressed due to hypermethylation of the surrounding DNA. So, YAY! Thats treatable! We have drugs that could fix that, like 5-aza-2'-deoxycytidine! Um, well, your DNA is…

I had to go to Washington DC/Bethesda last week for a short conference. I spent almost the entire time pooping, thanks to some food poisoning I got from a very expensive, universally recommended restaurant. YAY!! Luckily I wasnt sick when Francis Collins was supposed to speak. But he had to cancel. Still pooping, btw. Awesome. Yeah. So while Im not leaving my bed and sucking down bottles of Powerade and Gatorade (its room temperature, I dont care, I feel like crap, get it, LOL!), I do have two links to pass along. 1-- Though Collins bailed, I did get to see a very nice presentation on the…

from "Would dew believe it: The stunning pictures of sleeping insects covered in water droplets," at the Daily Mail Given the day, we find both foolishness and meat. Fun stuff first: Science, Nature Team Up on New Journal - ScienceNOW Does the WTF1 gene trigger the inferior supra-credulus? @edyong209 falls for the whole thing: http://bit.ly/bLlzqx Getting real: Is the Mirror Neuron theory unfalsifiable?: Greg Hickok thinks so. Pfizer paid $35m to MDs and Researchers. Latter claim $ doesn't influence practice.. Somebody's mistaken.http://s.nyt.com/u/N5m Motherly love may alter genes for…

Okay, you know how I say with ERVs and disease: Expression of the ERV protein causes the disease Expression of the ERV is an effect of the disease (a useful biomarker) Expression of the ERV is an effect that perpetuates the disease I just read a paper that exemplifies #3! Regulation of human endogenous retrovirus-K expression in melanomas by CpG methylation. So, you know how you have KRABs that bind to ERV DNA, and these KRABs recruit epigenetic machinery that silences the ERVs? Well, these folks looked in various melanoma cell lines, and looked for a specific ERV we see upregulated in…