the community site for and by developmental biologists
Posted by Erin M Campbell on April 12th, 2011
If there is hope to fully understand stem cells, then the environment surrounding those stem cells must be understood too. A recent Development paper describes important results on niche establishment in Drosophila. Stem cell niches play an important role in regulating stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. The Drosophila testis has two populations of stem cells[…]
Posted by Seema Grewal on April 12th, 2011
Here are the research highlights from the current issue of Development: Cranial neural crest development: p53 faces up The tumour suppressor p53 plays multiple roles in the prevention of cancer but its developmental functions are less clear. Here (see p. 1827), Eldad Tzahor and colleagues elucidate the key role that p53 plays in craniofacial development.[…]
Posted by Khalil A. Cassimally on April 12th, 2011
Last week, news that the Australian government was planning to slash the budget for medical research by more than half over the next three years leaked out and rocked the scientific community. Only one out of seven grants submitted to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia’s major funding body for medical research,[…]
Posted by Sivani on April 8th, 2011
The recipients of Canada’s most prestigious science awards, the Gairdner Awards, was recently announced. The Awards recognize researchers for their contributions to the field of medical research. The 2011 Gairdner Awards Recipients are: 2011 Canada Gairdner International Awards: Adrian Peter Bird Ph.D., Howard Cedar M.D., Ph.D., and Aharon Razin Ph.D. for their discoveries on DNA[…]
Posted by Eva Amsen on April 7th, 2011
You’ve seen the news: ES cells generate a 3D retinal structure. But what does this tell us about eye development? In the developing embryo, the first step toward a functional eye is the formation of the optic vesicle from the neural tube. This optic vesicle then invaginates to form an optic cup, which in turn[…]
Posted by Eva Amsen on April 5th, 2011
We’re trying to gauge interest for an informal gathering of Node readers (in the form of drinks after dinner) at the upcoming BSDB meeting. We have a lot of readers among BSDB members, but don’t know if you’re all attending the meeting this year, and whether you’re interesting in meeting other readers and contributors. You[…]
Posted by the Node on April 4th, 2011
Congratulations to Stéphane Vincent of the IGBMC in Illkirch, France, who won the Node’s intersection image competition: His image showing staining of a gut section of a E17.5 mouse embryo impressed the judges as well as the Node’s readers, receiving more than half of the votes. Stéphane says: “I took this picture by chance: I[…]
Posted by Stefan Hoppler on April 4th, 2011
Post-doctoral Research Fellow on Wnt signaling at University of Aberdeen, Scotland (YMS328R) A Post-doctoral Research Fellow is sought to join Dr Stefan Hoppler <s.p.hoppler@abdn.ac.uk> on a new project to investigate the molecular mechanisms of tissue-specific gene regulation by Wnt signalling. The project will involve high-throughput next generation sequencing to identify and analyze tissue-specific Wnt target[…]
Posted by Eva Amsen on March 31st, 2011
Every two years, the German society for developmental biology (Gesellschaft für Entwicklungsbiologie – GfE) hands out an award for the best PhD thesis of the previous two years. At their society meeting last week, this award went to Marion Silies, for her PhD thesis on glial cell migration. I met up with Marion after her[…]
Posted by Eva Amsen on March 29th, 2011
The Royal Society has collected a series of images that illustrate the moment important scientific discoveries were made. This “Moments of Seeing Further” collection includes a notebook sketch from 1980, contributed by Sir John E. Sulston and depicting cell division in C. elegans – work that contributed to the discovery of the fate map of[…]
