the community site for and by developmental biologists
Posted by HKStinnett on December 29th, 2014
I am a little late getting this post pulled together, but I am going to consider it a developmental delay, hopefully one that still results in a reasonably wild-type embryo, er, meeting summary. The 52nd Annual Midwest Society for Developmental Biology Meeting was held October 16-18th at Washington University in St. Louis. I had previously[…]
Posted by the Node on December 18th, 2014
This article by Insoo Hyun was first published in Development. Also read the companion ethics article here. In recent years, there has been much interest in the prospect of generating and using human stem cells that exhibit a state of naïve pluripotency. Such a pluripotent state might be functionally confirmed by assessing the chimeric contribution of these cells to non-human blastocysts. Furthermore, the[…]
Posted by the Node on December 18th, 2014
This article by Göran Hermerén was first published in Development. Also read the companion ethics article here. The development of human pluripotent stem cells has opened up the possibility to analyse the function of human cells and tissues in animal hosts, thus generating chimeras. Although such lines of research have great potential for both basic and translational science, they[…]
Posted by RebeccaL on December 17th, 2014
The Mouse ENCODE Project released a slew of papers late last month reporting findings from a three-year effort to comprehensively map functional elements in the mouse genome. Their major findings are summarized in an integrative paper in Nature (Yue, F. et. al., 2014). Similar to the goals of the human ENCODE project (The ENCODE Project Consortium,[…]
Posted by the Node on December 17th, 2014
Here is December’s round-up of some of the interesting content that we spotted around the internet! News & Research: – Masayo Takahashi was the winner of the 2014 Stem Cell Person of the Year award, while the STAP story was chosen as the Stem Cell Story of the Year, in an open vote in Paul Knoepfler’s blog.[…]
Posted by the Node on December 16th, 2014
This editorial was first published in Development. It was written by Olivier Pourquié, Benoit Bruneau, Gordon Keller and Austin Smith. The past 30 years or so have witnessed tremendous advances in the field of developmental biology. This has resulted in a growing (although still incomplete) understanding of the molecular basis of embryonic development, including characterization of signals and genes involved[…]
Posted by Seema Grewal on December 16th, 2014
Here are the highlights from the current issue of Development: Planar cell polarity squeezes in on the action The planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway regulates the polarization of epithelial tissues in various contexts, but recent studies suggest that the PCP pathway also influences other aspects of morphogenesis. Here, Sergei Sokol and colleagues uncover a[…]
Posted by ac270 on December 15th, 2014
Antibodies are frequently used in developmental biology labs, but their validation is crucial to provide the information needed in order to reliably interpret the results of experiments. Antibody validation is also important to help scientists chose antibodies that will be suitable for their experiments, yet the results of these validations rarely get published. To try[…]
Posted by Tom Pratt on December 12th, 2014
How do carbohydrates instruct brain development? APPLICATION DEADLINE 16th January 2015 Project Code: 2015-EastBio-001 The emergence of a brain at the front-end of a growing embryo requires very precise orchestration to make sure that the right structures form in the right place at the right times. Central to this process is not only the giving[…]
Posted by Tom Pratt on December 12th, 2014
Functional importance of HS carbohydrates in brain development. APPLICATION DEADLINE 5th January 2015 Project Code: 2015-CIP-012 Understanding the developmental mechanisms which create the CNS of healthy individuals is important for understanding neurological and psychiatric disorders with neurodevelopmental components. Although great strides have been made in identifying key regulators of this process our understanding is still rudimentary. Improving our knowledge base in[…]
