Trials for animations of Waddington’s epigenetic landscape. One idea is to develop an on-line game of some sort based around Waddingtons metaphor for the Epigenetic landscape.
moving epigenetics towards systems biology
Trials for animations of Waddington’s epigenetic landscape. One idea is to develop an on-line game of some sort based around Waddingtons metaphor for the Epigenetic landscape.
Hi there, Did you guys finished this project? I would like to watch this animation if you have uploaded to somewhere. Thanks a lot
—Qiu
Dear Qiu, Yes, this project is on going. See other blogs for updates. http://placementmodule.wordpress.com/
http://mhairimastersproject.wordpress.com/
Hope that helps.
Dear mtowler01,
I found one nice animation on epigenetic landscape http://vimeo.com/51814285. Maybe that is from your coordinator?
As a biologist, I would highly recommend you to know that the epigenetic landscape is used by us to understand the development. It is a pity that the animation didn’t show such information.
Epigenetic landscape originated from C. H. Waddington is a metaphor for development:
a ball (representing the stem cell) from the hilltop will automatically rolls down the valley and bifurcate into different pathways when it confronts a watershed. Nowadays this metaphor received a renaissance in biology in understanding the differentiation process.
It also implies the difficulty of reprogramming (for example, this year’s Nobel prize work in reprogramming fibroblast cell into stem cell) and potential availability of trans-differetiation (for example, the conversion between fibroblast cell into neuron cells).
If you could have an animation demonstrating such ideas, your work will be great lauded by more audience, especially the biologist.
I actually published a paper on epigenetic landscape: you can found here if you are interested in http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0049271.
Hope those words help.
Dear Xiaojie, Thanks for your comments. If you have a look at the placement blog that I sent you, you will see that we are aware of Waddingtons work and the animation you saw is an interpretation of that. We do realise Waddingtons Epigenetic landscape was a metaphor for development/differentiation of a cell, and have read his book, “Tools for Thought” which details the ideas behind this metaphor. This animation is not meant to be a literal translation of the bifurcation, rather it is an artistic interpretation which will get people discussing the ideas of Epigenetics and Systems Biology. We are working towards an art exhibition of these ideas for the EpiGeneSys consortium, a European funded project that does research on both these areas. http://www.epigenesys.eu/
It is possible that the animation could be developed to be an exact representation of the original drawing from the Waddington archive, however that was not the initial intent as we wanted to make something more abstract/artistic. Here is another post where you can read about our work. http://towardsdolly.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/c-h-waddington-inspiring-new-creations/
Thanks for sending on your paper, it is very interesting in terms of the science and I will show it to the systems biologists when we have a meeting in Amsterdam in January. Please keep in touch and we welcome your comments from the scientific point of view. Where is your research based?