The newspaper of Imperial College London
Reporter
 Issue 126, 5 February 2003
Contents
Too little too late... Rector's view on White Paper«
The insider view«
Sharks are gathering for Earthwatch day...«
Link between memory and neurofeedback«
Cog's anti-ageing function«
Understanding how cells 'remember'«
Blue plaque for Magician of Britain«
Super speed electrons to be snapped by new UK 'camera'«
Trust's big Wellcome for Mark«
Nobel Laureate Rotblat to visit Imperial«
In brief«
Media spotlight«

Understanding how cells 'remember'

SCIENTISTS from Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital, the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK have discovered an important aspect of how heterochromatin, the wrapping around DNA, works, writes Tony Stephenson.

Researchers' work published in Science, discovered that heterochromatin is dynamic, constantly wrapping and unwrapping around DNA, and not static as previously thought.

Dr Richard Festenstein from Imperial College and the MRC Clinical Sciences Centre at Hammersmith Hospital explained: "Although this research improves our basic understanding of how cells 'remember' which genes to switch on or off, it could also help us understand diseases which are linked to inappropriate 'switching', such as cancer, and several inherited diseases.

"The previous view that heterochromatin was a sort of static 'molecular-glue' has been shattered, revealing a dynamic way of regulating access of crucial factors to DNA."
 
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