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A team of ӳý researchers led by Jill Mesirov, Edo Airoldi, and Chris Burge recently published a paper describing their “” software for visualizing the abundance of mRNA isoforms in multiple RNA-Seq samples. Now integrated into the (IGV) browser, the plots display raw data that resembles small pieces of sashimi and include isoform abundance estimates from the quantitation program, MISO. Learn more about the software in the journal

How does a seemingly harmless member of the human microbiome become the fourth most common cause of infection in hospitals? A new paper from the lab of ӳý core member Aviv Regev reveals the molecular mechanisms that enable Candida albicans — a common fungus normally found in the human body — to evolve into a drug-resistant pathogen. Read the study in .

This week, Nature Genetics included papers on two new methods for leveraging large cohort studies. One paper — from the ӳý’s Program in (MPG) and , along with a team of collaborators — shares a powerful in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The other — also with contributions from MPG — that vastly increases computation speed while simultaneously increasing the statistical power of large data sets.

Overcoming mechanisms of drug resistance is an ongoing obstacle in developing successful cancer therapeutics. , researchers from the ӳý's Center for the Development of Therapeutics and colleagues describe using multiple myeloma-stroma cell co-cultures to screen for small molecules that overcome stroma-induced drug resistance; notably, they identified a compound that uniquely interacts with a microtubule-bound mitotic protein highly expressed in multiple myeloma cells compared with normal blood cells. These finding illustrate how chemical biology can complement genetics to advance therapeutics discovery.

From person to person, the human genome varies in a number of important ways. Some of the variation is in the form of genetic misspellings – single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. Other variation takes the form of so-called “structural variation:” as genetic rearrangements, or as missing or extra segments of DNA, known as copy number variation (CNV). Scientists at the ӳý and elsewhere are working to locate and characterize many different types of variation and look for connections between the variants and human traits and disease.