Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant morbidity worldwide. Approximately 380,000 babies are born prematurely in the USA every year. Estrogen (E2) and progesterone (P4) play essential roles during pregnancy and labor; a clear understanding of their action mechanisms, however, is lacking. E2 and P4 function by activating...
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) are two devastating neurodegenerative diseases that affect 100,000s of people globally. They have a severe adverse impact on society, yet there are currently no early diagnostic tools or disease-modifying therapies available. Despite their clinical heterogeneity, evidence points to these diseases being on...
RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) is a powerful high-throughput tool to profile transcriptional activities in cells. The observed read counts can be biased by various factors such that they do not accurately represent the true relative abundance of mRNA transcript abundance. Normalization is a critical step to ensure unbiased comparison of gene expression...