John Hemming's Web Log

On 19-20 June 2023 I attended the conference of the UK Autophagy network. They have a website for the conference here and https://twitter.com/autophagyuk is their twitter account. This was a really interesting conference. My degree is in Physics specialising in Theoretical, Atomic and Nuclear physics. However, I have spent a lot of time reading up on molecular biology in the last few years. This is mainly to improve the health of my own cells which I believe (with some evidence) will improve my health as an individual. I have ended up as a biohacker, which is someone who uses cutting edge science to improve their own health making their own decisions. I am pleased that the UK Autophagy network decided they would allow me as a biohacker - they described me as an Independent Student - to attend their conference. Autophagy comes from the greek words which imply "eating oneself". It is a key part of cellular metabolism. In many ways it is obvious why Autophagy would b...

I have been reading up on the issues around acetylation of the histone and I have some ideas as to the interplay between acetylation and deacetylation. There are two steps in creating proteins. The first is called "transcription". This is where a complex called RNA Polymerase II (RNA Pol II or RNAPII) travels down the gene creating messenger RNA (mRNA) as essentially a local copy. The second is "translation" where proteins get created from the mRNA. Although I think there are important metabolic constraints on protein creation in this post I am going to concentrate on "transcription". One of the key things about Transcription is that for RNA Pol II to get at the genes to copy from them the genes need to be opened up. The opening up process is where an acetyl group (think vinegar without the hydrogen ion or oxygen which would attract the hydrogen) is added to the histone which holds the DNA. This causes it to open up as a result of the electric char...