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Studies over the last decade have identified differences in cancer gene expression that cannot be explained by coding sequences or promoter variations. The effect of transcriptional enhancers, on the other hand, remains unclear due to the lack of an effective way to link enhancers with their controlled genes. Recently, we discovered a class of inter-tumor, inter-patient DNA methylation variations in putative enhancers that predict changes in gene expression levels with much greater power than promoter or sequence analyses. I will describe our efforts to determine if changes in enhancer methylation form part of the genomic basis of cancer.

Clouds play a major role for the hydrological cycle, the radiation budget and climate on Earth. They are also the largest factor of uncertainty in the scientific understanding and prediction of climate change. The CLOUD experiment at CERN allows to study aerosol and cloud formation under atmospheric conditions at a new level of precision. A focus of investigations are ion-induced aerosol formation processes using an elementary particle beam from CERN. Here, the potential role of galactic cosmic rays - and their modulation by the sun - for aerosols, clouds and climate is studied. The role of ionization for aerosol formation by different chemical systems of natural and anthropogenic origin is quantied. The experiments therefore yield a new understanding of pre-industrial and present-day aerosol sources and their influences on clouds and climate. Most recently, an important new mechanism based on purely biogenic precursor compounds was discovered and its role for climate was assessed. Furthermore, the results from many experiments performed over the past years were parameterized and combined in a global model to predict the role of different particle formation mechanisms in the different regions of the atmosphere. The talk presents an introduction on the role of aerosols and clouds for climate, an overview of the CLOUD chamber at CERN, and of the fi ndings and implications from recent experiments.