José María Vargas (1786–1854): medical doctor and the first dean of the central univeristy of Venezuela

José María Vargas (1786–1854) was a multifaceted personality: Venezuelan politician, medical doctor and scientist. In 1827 he became the first dean of the Central University of Caracas. As a professional doctor, he made significant contribution to the teaching of medicine, his educational work encompassed many fields such as human anatomy, surgery, chemistry, etc. In 1827 he founded the Medical Society of Caracas. He served as president of Venezuela from 1835 to 1836. From 1839 to 1852 he was the president of the Directorate General of Education and created its first Code of Public Instruction for Universities and Academies. He carried out plenty of different medical researches and wrote many important books and papers

Targeted reprogramming of H3K27me3 resets epigenetic memory in plant paternal chromatin

Epigenetic marks are reprogrammed in the gametes to reset genomic potential in the next generation. In mammals, paternal chromatin is extensively reprogrammed through the global erasure of DNA methylation and the exchange of histones with protamines(1,2). Precisely how the paternal epigenome is reprogrammed in flowering plants has remained unclear since DNA is not demethylated and histones are retained in sperm(3,4). Here, we describe a multi-layered mechanism by which H3K27me3 is globally lost from histone-based sperm chromatin in Arabidopsis. This mechanism involves the silencing of H3K27me3 writers, activity of H3K27me3 erasers and deposition of a sperm-specific histone, H3.10 (ref. (5)), which we show is immune to lysine 27 methylation. The loss of H3K27me3 facilitates the transcription of genes essential for spermatogenesis and pre-configures sperm with a chromatin state that forecasts gene expression in the next generation. Thus, plants have evolved a specific mechanism to simultaneously differentiate male gametes and reprogram the paternal epigenome

SITUACIÓN DE LAS UNIVERSIDADES ARGENTINAS Y LATINOAMERICANAS EN RELACIÓN AL MATERIAL CADAVÉRICO PARA LA ENSEÑANZA DE LA ANATOMÍA. Argentine and Latinamerican universities situation in relation to the cadaveric material for Anatomy teaching

Los autores son un grupo de profesores de Anatomía, que pensamos representativo de la realidad argentina y latinoamericana, que relatarán la situación de sus universidades en lo referente a la utilización de material cadavérico para la enseñanza de la Anatomía. La importancia que le adjudican a la disección o al material disecado para la enseñanza-aprendizaje, la disponibilidad de cuerpos, su origen y si cuentan con programas para la procuración y/o donación, son algunos de los aspectos abordados. Seguramente podrán comprobar que existen aspectos comunes y algunos notoriamente diferentes. El objetivo de este Debate es conocer la realidad de países con una idiosincrasia similar, aprender de las experiencias positivas y negativas, y propiciar el avance en un tema en que, Argentina en particular y Latinoamérica en general, está muy retrasada.   Authors are a group of professors of Anatomy we considered to be representative of argentine and latin-american reality, who will expose their university situation in relation to the use of cadaveric material for teaching in Anatomy. Some of the treated topics are the importance of dissection and dissected material for teaching and learning, bodies availability, their origin and if their universities have programs for body procurement and donation. Readers will certainly identify some common aspects and some notorious differences. The Debate objective is to get information on the reality of countries with similar idiosyncracy, to learn on other’s positive and negative experiences, and to propitiate the development in this topic in which Argentina and Latin-America are delayed