Numerous viruses are used in the service of science today. They serve as gene taxis to transfer therapeutic genes into body cells or as therapeutic viruses targeted to infect and destroy cancer cells. For such applications, the viruses are often equipped with additional genes, such as for immune mediators or for proteins inducing programmed cell death. However, these gene products can harm the body if they are released at the wrong moment or at excessive levels. "Ideally, we want to be able to turn on and off the transferred genes at a specific time," says Dr. Dirk Nettelbeck, a virologist from DKFZ.

Regardless of how much a high school student generally studies each day, if that student sacrifices sleep in order to study more than usual, he or she is more likely to have academic problems the following day. Because students tend to increasingly sacrifice sleep time for studying in the latter years of high school, this negative dynamic becomes more and more prevalent over time.

Transcription is a cellular process by which genetic information from DNA is copied to messenger RNA for protein production. But anticancer drugs and environmental chemicals can sometimes interrupt this flow of genetic information by causing modifications in DNA.

An international team led by New York University School of Medicine and BGI, the largest genomics organization in the world, has completed the first genome-wide and single-nucleotide resolution DNA methylomes of two ant species: Camponotus floridanus and Harpegnathos saltator. It provides new insights into the relationship between epigenetic regulation and caste differentiation of ants and also shed light on the epigenetic mechanism involved in social behavior, neurobiology and life-span of other animals. The latest study was published in Current Biology, one sister journal of Cell.