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One of the main challenges of 21st century biology is to describe the many factors controlling our genes – our ‘epigenetics’. Having sequenced the human genome in 1999, and the genomes of many other organisms since then, we already know what genes these organisms have, but we must now study where those genes are used, in which cell types, during which stage of development, and in response to what ...

Chromatin packages a few meters of DNA into a nucleus measuring a few microns. This tight folding occurs by assembling DNA with histones into so-called nucleosomes, thus ensuring the mechanical stability of our genome. On the flipside, this makes nucleosomes a formidable obstacle to the machines that read, copy or repair its DNA message. One of the fundamental questions in biology is to understand ...