The Second German-Catalan Workshop on Epigenetics and Cancer was held in Barcelona on November 19-21, 2014. The workshop brought together, for the second time, scientists from 2 German and 2 Catalan research institutions: the DKFZ, from Heidelberg, the CRCME, from Freiburg, and the IMPPC and PEBC/IDIBELL, both from Barcelona. The German-Catalan Workshops are intended to establish the framework for building a Research School to foster collaborations between researchers from the different institutions. Exchange programs for graduate students are among the activities of the future School. The topics presented and discussed in 33 talks were diverse and included work on DNA methylation, histone modifications, chromatin biology, characterization of imprinted regions in human tissues, non-coding RNAs, and epigenetic drug discovery. Among novel developments from the previous Workshop are the report of the epigenetics angle of the Warburg effect and the long-range trans-acting interaction of DNA methylation and of nucleosome remodeling. A shift in the view on DNA methylation became apparent by the realization of the intertwined interplay between hyper- and hypo-methylation in differentiation and cancer.
Keywords: CRCME; DKFZ; DNA methylation; German Cancer Research Center; HDCAs; IMPPC; Institute of Predictive and Personalized Medicine of Cancer; PEBC/IDIBELL; Program on Cancer Epigenetics and Biology at Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge; Research Center for Collaborative Medical Epigenetics; cancer; chromatin; differentiation; epigenetics; histone modifications; imprinting; non-coding RNAs; repetitive elements.