The underlying goal for most epigenetic research projects is to eventually lead to a therapeutic clinical application. Here we provide a history of clinical epigenetic advances in this interdisciplinary field as told through our coverage
Just when it seems that scientists are winning the fight against cancer, tumors hit below the belt by developing resistance to chemotherapies. But researchers at the University of Glasgow and TopoTarget Prolifix Ltd. have shown that delivering a 1-2 punch of epigenetic drugs could allow the chemotherapeutic agent cisplatin to knock out resistant tumors.
The NIH Roadmap Epigenomics’ workshop on Emerging Evidence for Epigenomic Changes in Human Disease was a two day workshop with great talks from many of the grant awardees and other pioneers in the field.
Some things always seem better in combos: Soon, we may need to add Vidaza® & entinostat to that list. The combination of Vidaza® (5-azacitidine) and entinostat (SNDX-275) has significant activity in patients with advanced relapsed non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
It’s encouraging to know that the epigenetics research you do today might someday translate into life-saving therapies. The first generation of FDA-approved epigenetics-based drugs has firmly established that epigenetic modulation is a viable treatment option for a growing list of diseases.
5-azacytidine is widely known as a powerful demethylating agent in clinical trials for cancer. So you can imagine our surprise when a new publication in Epigenetics caught 5-azacytidine also living a secret life of reorganizing histone modifications…lots of them.
As we’ve all recently witnessed, some actors have polished public images but are a mess in real life. After reading two recent papers by groups in Los Angeles and Turkey, it sounds like the same could be said of 5-azacytidine (Vidaza®).
The goal of this meeting was to examine the link between the basic science of epigenetic mechanisms and the therapeutic value of drugs targeting these processes.
The ultimate goal of this keystone symposium was to brindge the gap between academics and scientists from pharmaceutical industry towards a more systematic and efficient exchange of scientific knowledge and a reinforcement of strategic collaborations in the field of epigenetics and drug development.
This meeting attempted to cover a lot of ground in a short about of time and succeeded by having keynote speakers discussing the broader story on Environmental Epigenetics and mini symposiums run in parallel focusing on specific topics such as Biomarkers, the Role of Nutrition and Epigenetics in Human Health, Mechanisms, Environmental Epigenetic: from Mice to Humans, two sessions on Critical Windows of Early Exposure & Sensitivity, and the Association between Epigenetics and Pediatric Disease and Exposure.
The inaugural Clinical Epigenome Conference (TCEC) was held alongside the sister Clinical Genome Conference (TCGC) in San Francisco and the tight-knit community of ~40 epigeneticists at TCEC joined with fellow geneticists at TCGC to tackle methods of dealing with unwieldy datasets being pumped out at a lightning pace.
