MD Biosciences Blog

In its 2015 “Year-in-Review”, Science News declared the “Epigenome” has made its “debut”. Why? Because epigenetic alterations; including acetylation, phosphorylation and methylation have been found to be a means by which genes can be regulated post translation.

While not new, numerous clinical studies have recently been published highlighting the important role methylation plays in epigenetic alterations.

Published findings include:

• Mutations in the DNA methyltransferase 3A gene (DNMT3A) in transgenic mice supports clinical findings of clonal dominance occurring in aging populations.
• A poor prognosis in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is associated with DNMT3A mutations.
• Presence of DNMT3A mutations is associated with poor prognosis in adult T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).
• Hypomethylation (due to loss of the enzymatic activity in the DNMTAs) and Hypermethylation (specifically in the promoter region) have both been observed in malignances.

As we wind down to years end, we at MD Biosciences would like to thank everyone, especially our collaborators, for making this year a success. We have undergone significant growth that we expect to continue throughout the upcoming year.

The 2015 annual AMP meeting opened Novemeber 5^th in Austin TX, with a presentation by Dr Brian Druker titled “Imatinib as a Paradigm of Targeted Cancer Therapies.”  This year’s recipient of the AMP Award for Excellence in Molecular Diagnostics, Dr Druker highlighted the importance of identifying patients through biomarkers and matching therapies to the patient.  This theme continued through many of the presentations, posters and vendor exhibits the importance of providing physicians actionable results for patient care and therapeutics.  Molecular diagnostics are critical to any discussion on precision or personalized medicine. 

The 12th World Congress on Inflammation wrapped up on Wednesday August 12th after four days packed with cutting edge inflammatory research by key opinions leaders in the field. Presentations hit every aspect of the scientific spectrum from development of pre-clinical models through retrospective studies on new target therapies and everything in between. Highlights of the conference included the Keynote Lecture by Luke O’Neill of Trinity College Dublin, the Symposium “Mechanisms Underlying Microbiome-Mediated Inflammation”, and multiple discussions on identifying and targeting novel biomarkers of inflammatory diseases.