Word: ecker
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Still, Beal continued to push for an Islamic-art gallery. In the summer of 2005, he hired Heather Ecker, a well-regarded curator whose background includes a year at Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art. Ecker carefully combed the 900-plus pieces of Islamic art in the DIA's collection, most of which was stored in the basement. Some pieces, like shards of pots, weren't worthy of being publicly shown. Others were striking finds, like the massive gilded copper candlestick the DIA acquired from a Belgian art dealer in 1922. It had been classified as an 18th century candlestick...
Biologists offer this analogy as an explanation: if the genome is the hardware, then the epigenome is the software. "I can load Windows, if I want, on my Mac," says Joseph Ecker, a Salk Institute biologist and leading epigenetic scientist. "You're going to have the same chip in there, the same genome, but different software. And the outcome is a different cell type...
...grandiose. In fact, the scientists had mapped only a certain portion of the epigenomes of two cell types (an embryonic stem cell and another basic cell called a fibroblast). There are at least 210 cell types in the human body - and possibly far more, according to Ecker, the Salk biologist, who worked on the epigenome maps. Each of the 210 cell types is likely to have a different epigenome. That's why Ecker calls the $190 million grant from NIH "peanuts" compared with the probable end cost of figuring out what all the epigenetic marks are and how they work...
Remember the Human Genome Project? Completed in March 2000, the project found that the human genome contains something like 25,000 genes; it took $3 billion to map them all. The human epigenome contains an as yet unknowable number of patterns of epigenetic marks, a number so big that Ecker won't even speculate on it. The number is certainly in the millions. A full epigenome map will require major advances in computing power. When completed, the Human Epigenome Project (already under way in Europe) will make the Human Genome Project look like homework that 15th century kids did with...
Marc and Linda Ecker of Fountain Valley, Calif., enjoy the Robin's Nest in Houston precisely because it is close to shops, museums and restaurants. They have stayed there several times over the past couple of years while visiting their daughter and son-in-law. The location, coupled with the inn's down-home appeal, keeps them coming back. "There's a real neighborhood feeling at this B&B, like you're back in time, sitting and chatting on someone's front porch," says Marc, 54, a school superintendent. "I also appreciate the fact that there is no one with...