The second ever Chromatin Coffee of the Bay Area Chromatin and Epigenomics group was a virtual event and took place last Saturday, May 16th 2020. Chromatin Coffee are small, casual gatherings held in between our bigger events.
Below are some leading conversation themes and links to articles that the event’s participants shared during the discussion.
Challenges of epigenetic drug targeting
Triggered by the (old) news from the beginning of this year about tazemetostat – an Ezh2 inhibitor FDA-approved for treatment of epithelioid sarcoma – we discussed the challenges of the epigenetic drugs’ specificity and targeting.
Related links:
Throwing the cancer switch: reciprocal roles of polycomb and trithorax proteins
Wikipedia: Targeted drug delivery
Epigenetics in cancer therapy and nanomedicine
Drugging an undruggable pocket on KRAS
Transcriptomic programs in brain development
We discussed the paper shedding light on the transcriptomic programs during brain development, and how they connect to brain disorders: Whole-Genome and RNA Sequencing Reveal Variation and Transcriptomic Coordination in the Developing Human Prefrontal Cortex.
Methylation and aging
Following that, we embarked on the discussion of the role of methylation in aging. In particular, we pondered whether one may attempt to affect their methylation levels, e.g. via diet. Some of the points raised were that it is important to distinguish between biomarkers and causative factors, that causation is difficult to prove, and that in aging, as in any area of pathology, scientific evidence from the right models and from clinical trials may be needed before a certain course of action is proven beneficial.
Related links:
Relationship of nutrigenomics and aging: Involvement of DNA methylation
Causality in Machine Learning
Stemming from the discussion on biomarkers vs. causative factors in aging, we dived into the conversation about why establishing causality is a difficult endeavor.
“The book of why” was recommended for further reading on this matter.
Bio Bay Area 