渡虎谷

interesting site about SEO (search engine optimization):
http://www.admy.cn

manuscript

I have been writing a manuscript since early Feburary this year. Although this is not my first paper, I didn't actually write the first one. So this is the first time that I am actually writing. It takes so long. No matter what level of paper you are writing, you have to put into a similar amount of work. According to my advisor, usually it is 6 months. But this is important. You work hard to get the data and you want to write a decent paper and want people to read it and cite it. So, you have to write it carefully. I heard that there are some people who can help you write scientific papers. They might not understand the science you are working, but they sure know how to communicate. This is important.

Epigenetics and cell identity

Two areas of investigation are currently of great interest to biologists. The first being what determines the identity of a particular cell, and the second being the ability of various cells to maintain their identities during cell division. Since theoretically every cell in a given organism contains the same genetic information (i.e. DNA or genome sequence), the answers do not lie within the DNA sequence itself, but rather reflect the organization of chromatin into active and inactive components, i.e. epigenetics. So, the questions become: How is the genetic information organized so that it is interpreted correctly to give a cell a particular identity and how is that organization inherited? These questions are important to understand the relationship between genotype and phenotype and are also very important for medical sciences. For example, epigenetic abnormality has been linked to cancer and other human diseases. But the underlying mechanisms remain a mystery. So, in the long-term, an understanding of these topics will have positive medical applications with respect to both diagnosis and treatment.

Epigenetics is an enormous and rapidly growing field. It started from DNA methylation about 20 years ago. Now this concept includes histone modifications, histone variants, imprinting, replication timing, and more. However when you look at these closely, you will notice that all these properties could very likely be controlled by one thing: DNA replication, when chromatin is assembled. At the time of DNA synthesis, Mother Nature could efficiently assemble all these important packaging components that give a cell the identity.