Fish and ChIPs

Description for the photo: Some of the ChIP workshop participants at NMBU. From the left: Marie-Odile Baudement, Tan Thi Nguyen, Mariann Arnyasi, Shona Wood, Matthew Kent, Marianne Vaadal, Mathilde Holen. Photo credit: Øystein Milvang.



Fish and ChIPs

Arctic chronobiology and physiology’s (ACP) Shona Wood, was an invited to the Centre for Integrative Genetics (CIGENE) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) to teach the latest techniques in epigenetic research.

What is epigenetics?

The activity of our genes is determined by more than their DNA sequence alone. Active and silent genes are distinguished by epigenetic marks – chemical tags that are added to the DNA or to the proteins around which the DNA is organised on chromosomes.

As an organism grows, develops and adapts to its environment is must activate and deactivate parts of the genome at strategic times and in specific locations. Epigenetics is the study of these chemical reactions and the factors that influence them.

The ChIP workshop

The week long wet lab course, run by Shona Wood, at NMBU, taught 10 scientists a technique called chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP). The course focused on the epigenetics of the Atlantic Salmon. Gaining a better understanding the influence of the environment on the development of Salmon is of great economic importance to Norway. Projects currently running at UiT in ACP (David Hazlerigg, Even Jørgensen) and NMBU (Simen Sandve) will benefit from this training. A reciprocal workshop in bioinformatic analysis, run by Simen Sandve (NMBU), will be hosted by ACP in September.