Epigenetics Changes Everything: Revisiting the Nature vs. Nurture Debate 17,221 views Oct 10, 2017

Epigenetics Changes Everything: Revisiting the Nature vs. Nurture Debate 17,221 viewsOct 10, 2017 Parents & Science 1.73K subscribers C. David Allis, Alan Alda, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, James and Marilyn Simons. On Tuesday, October 6, 2015, The Rockefeller University hosted its fourth annual CELEBRATING SCIENCE benefit lecture and dinner, sponsored by the Parents & Science initiative. President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and special guest Alan Alda co-hosted the evening, which honored James and Marilyn Simons. This year’s featured lecturer was internationally renowned Rockefeller scientist C. David Allis, Ph.D., recipient of a 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, who presented a lecture entitled, “Epigenetics Changes Everything: Revisiting the Nature vs. Nurture Debate.” Dr. Allis’s research has been especially important in the field of cancer biology. His investigations of epigenetic processes have led to a therapeutic breakthrough for certain leukemias and, more recently, to clinically relevant insights into the causes of specific classes of pediatric brain tumors. Four hundred guests enjoyed an elegant tented dinner on the University’s esplanade following the lecture, where Alan Alda paid tribute to Jim and Marilyn Simons for their roles in transforming math and science education and advancing biomedical research. Through the initiatives of the Simons Foundation, founded in 1994, they are furthering the understanding and treatment of autism spectrum disorders and improving math and science education. The evening raised over $2.2 million, including $200,000 from an auction conducted by distinguished Sotheby’s auctioneer Hugh Hildesley. The proceeds from this event support the Parents & Science initiative, which funds research on children’s health and development at Rockefeller, as well as the University’s Science Outreach Program. Biological Information: Genetic, epigenetic, and exogenetic 1,489 viewsOct 10, 2018 École normale supérieure - PSL 55.8K subscribers Exposé de Paul Griffiths dans le cadre du colloquium du Département d'Etudes Cognitives de l'ENS, le 27 septembre 2017. It is often said that genes carry ‘biological information’, but what does this really mean ? Recent work in the philosophy of causation and in complex systems science on the measurement of causal influence offers a natural way to reconstruct what the co-discover of the structure of DNA Francis Crick meant when he said that genetics involves distinct flows of matter, energy and information. The resulting quantitative measures of information provide a common currency to measure the flow of information from genetic, epigenetic and exogenetic sources, and to compare these influences on a single phenotypic outcome. I will compare and contrast this sense of ‘information’, which is a measurable property of the causal structure of systems, to the popular ‘teleosemantic’ approach to biological information advocated by Ruth Millikan, Nicholas Shea and others. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ►ENS : http://www.ens.fr ►SAVOIRS ENS : http://www.savoirs.ens.fr ►FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/Ecole.normal... ►TWITTER : https://twitter.com/ENS_ULM ►INSTAGRAM : https://www.instagram.com/normalesup Chapters Epigenetics: Inheriting More Than Genes" featuring C. David Allis 7,127 viewsFeb 10, 2014 The Rockefeller University 3.19K subscribers C. David Allis, Rockefeller University Professor and head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics, delivers the 2013 "Talking Science" Holiday Lecture for High School Students. Filmed in Caspary Auditorium, December 30. C. David Allis (Rockefeller U.) 2: Epigenetics in Development and Disease 31,041 viewsMay 2, 2016 465 DISLIKE SHARE DOWNLOAD CLIP SAVE iBiology 148K subscribers https://www.ibiology.org/genetics-and... In the first of his videos, Dr. Allis introduces the concept of epigenetics; a change in a cellular phenotype that is not due to DNA mutation but due to chemical modifications of proteins that result in changes in gene activation. In the nucleus, DNA is wrapped around proteins called histones to form chromatin. How tightly the chromatin is packaged determines whether genes are active or not. This switch between the “on and off” state of chromatin is regulated by chemical modification of histones. Allis describes work from his lab and others that identified the enzymes that add, remove and recognize the histone modifications. Changes in histone modification can cause a number of diseases including cancer. A key difference between genetic mutations and epigenetic modifications is that epigenetic changes are reversible making them an attractive drug target. Dr. Allis focuses on the role of epigenetics in development and disease in his second talk. Histones can be modified on a number of amino acids, particularly lysines, by the addition of acetyl or methyl groups. Combinatorial patterns of these modifications act to enhance or repress gene expression. Allis describes work from his lab and others, which demonstrates that mutations in histone (for instance a lysine to methionine mutation) may block these modifications and, thus, impact gene expression. Sadly, these “onco-histone” mutations have been identified as the cause of many diseases including pediatric brain tumors and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Speaker Biography: C. David Allis is the Joy and Jack Fishman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics at The Rockefeller University. Allis’ lab studies how modifications to histones, the proteins that package DNA, influence gene expression and the implications these changes have for human disease. Allis has been honored with many awards for his pioneering research including the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2014 Japan Prize, the 2007 Canada Gairdner International Award and many others. Allis is a member of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences. Allis received his BS in biology from the University of Cincinnati and his PhD in biology from Indiana University and he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Rochester. Chapters Featured playlist 70 videos Genetics & Gene Regulation iBiology 8 Comments rongmaw lin Add a comment... NLSoulja99 NLSoulja99 5 years ago Very nice and interesting data, relevant to some rare human cancer diseases, eventhough initial research was literally based upon yeast models! I admire Dr. Allis and his co-workers. He's one of the best in epigenomics research, hands down. 2 Pavel Penev Pavel Penev 2 years ago I wonder if there's really something that makes mutations of H3.3K27 → I harder to happen than H3.3K27 → M. Or, is there something that makes K27 → M mutations more destructive that K27 → I? It also makes sense that damaging one amino acid in the region that controls the enabling and disabling of a gene would be a lot more impactful than damaging one amino acid in a protein used for other purposes. If you permanently disable all the codons wrapped around a nucleosome, or can't control when they should stop being expressed, you've pretty much impacted all the hundreds of codons around that nucleosome, or, perhaps, even the whole gene. (Also, how is enabling and disabling of all the nucleosomes that are part of the same gene coordinated?) It also makes intuitive sense that being unable to regulate the expression of a gene can result in uncontrolled growth. E.g., if you can't produce a signal that plays a role in telling the cell, or other cells to stop dividing, you'd expect to get uncontrolled tissue growth. Joseph Brady Joseph Brady 6 years ago David's first lecture was very clear, the second less so....His lab is doing great things and he is clearly doing pioneering work... 1 Mahadi B. Alyami Mahadi B. Alyami 3 years ago Great lecture. 2 tomatoeraincow tomatoeraincow 5 years ago I'm taking a class on epigenetics and it has been quite confusing for me. But his explanations here are clear and so relevant. He should do more public lectures! 5 Jonathan Brown Jonathan Brown 2 years ago I learned a lot and it's a history of great work, but from the beginning of the first lecture to the end of the second, the focus keeps narrowing from "epigenetics in development and disease" to a few rare cancers. Anyone interested in large public health problems like the global epidemic of type 2 diabetes and the racial and social disparities in COVID-19 severity would appreciate a mention of the known causal role of epigenetics in susceptibility to diabetes and, by extension, COVID-19. 3 C. David Allis (Rockefeller U.) 1: Epigenetics: Why Your DNA Isn’t Enough 53,006 viewsMay 2, 2016 872 DISLIKE SHARE DOWNLOAD CLIP SAVE iBiology 148K subscribers https://www.ibiology.org/genetics-and... In the first of his videos, Dr. Allis introduces the concept of epigenetics; a change in a cellular phenotype that is not due to DNA mutation but due to chemical modifications of proteins that result in changes in gene activation. In the nucleus, DNA is wrapped around proteins called histones to form chromatin. How tightly the chromatin is packaged determines whether genes are active or not. This switch between the “on and off” state of chromatin is regulated by chemical modification of histones. Allis describes work from his lab and others that identified the enzymes that add, remove and recognize the histone modifications. Changes in histone modification can cause a number of diseases including cancer. A key difference between genetic mutations and epigenetic modifications is that epigenetic changes are reversible making them an attractive drug target. Dr. Allis focuses on the role of epigenetics in development and disease in his second talk. Histones can be modified on a number of amino acids, particularly lysines, by the addition of acetyl or methyl groups. Combinatorial patterns of these modifications act to enhance or repress gene expression. Allis describes work from his lab and others, which demonstrates that mutations in histone (for instance a lysine to methionine mutation) may block these modifications and, thus, impact gene expression. Sadly, these “onco-histone” mutations have been identified as the cause of many diseases including pediatric brain tumors and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Speaker Biography: C. David Allis is the Joy and Jack Fishman Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics at The Rockefeller University. Allis’ lab studies how modifications to histones, the proteins that package DNA, influence gene expression and the implications these changes have for human disease. Allis has been honored with many awards for his pioneering research including the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the 2014 Japan Prize, the 2007 Canada Gairdner International Award and many others. Allis is a member of the National Academy of Sciences USA, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences. Allis received his BS in biology from the University of Cincinnati and his PhD in biology from Indiana University and he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Rochester. Chapters Featured playlist 70 videos Genetics & Gene Regulation iBiology