I wrote to several colleagues in the process of highlighting (preLight here) a recent preprint on conference reform by Sarabipour et al., some involved in organising conferences, others invested in ECR career development, publishing, and publishing reform. Here are their comments (I will update this resource as I hear back from more people):

Jessica Polka, Executive Director of ASAPbio

“I am really intrigued by the local hub model… [though] it’s often challenging to be a virtual participant when much of the meeting is happening in person.”

ASAPbio is planning to move our meetings online for the foreseeable future, so we will definitely be using some of these ideas. Replicating the “hallway track” seems to be one of the most significant challenges, so I’m excited to play with Zoom breakout rooms and other ways to promote 1:1 interaction.

I am really intrigued by the local hub model, though this raises the question of what people can do if they can’t travel to a hub or if connections between hubs are as important as interactions within them. This stems from my previous personal experience with hybrid events: it’s often challenging to be a virtual participant when much of the meeting is happening in person. It may be that, with better A/V tools, this problem will diminish (for example, the Meeting Owl enables virtual attendees to feel more like they’re in a room of speakers).

Prachee Avasthi, University of Kansas Medical Centre, USA – founder of New PI Slack 

“My thoughts are that the bar for conferences needs to be MUCH higher. We shouldn’t just fight the rich-get richer-factor, we should obliterate it.”

My thoughts are that the bar for conferences needs to be MUCH higher. If we are going to incur the expense and carbon cost of an in person meeting, it should be a complete complement of what’s missing elsewhere. It shouldn’t be a place to showcase work and people we already know and see elsewhere, it should be a way to highlight things we otherwise would never have seen or meet others we never would have met. We shouldn’t just fight the rich-get richer-factor, we should obliterate it.

 Second, one of the reasons people don’t like the current iteration of virtual conferences is that we’re trying too hard to make it the SAME as an in person conference might be and make weak substitutes for the real thing. This is why I’m less excited about virtual video conference format in general (though I realize they’re an important piece of this and others likely prefer it). Not only is it a poor substitute, but mainly, I can’t get the protection needed from my work and home life needed to participate in a virtual conference. Instead, we should completely reinvent a conference experience that takes a lot of the elements suggested in the preprint (preprints, Slack etc) and maybe other ways of promoting asynchronous discussion and commenting. Maybe we could finally have the robust comment culture you all have going on at prelights for conference preprints. Actually, conferences are where the bulk/all of my preprint feedback comes from. So having some framework to post preprints and have a dedicated period of time to read/comment asynchronously would be awesome. Along with maybe some incentives to comment/contribute in a timely way (maybe comments or aggregated feedback could get highlighted in journals and comprehensive reports of collected preprints could be another research product people could get credit for).

Maybe there are other ways where people could introduce/brand themselves that are even BETTER than relying upon cold approaching people in a virtual chat room or in person. An ORCID-linked virtual calling card with standardized photo/information in a Slack profile or another item like that attached to preprints so we could get to know all the authors of any preprint better.

Stephen Royle, University of Warwick, UK – former BSCB Meetings Secretary

“Thanks for highlighting this preprint. I had overlooked it, what with everything going on! I couldn’t agree more with the points raised and – like you and others – I was feeling this way before COVID-19.”

Sally Lowell (Meetings Officer BSDB, Board of Directors, The Company of Biologists) and
Kate Storey (Board of Directors, The Company of Biologists), Cambridge, UK 

“The problem is that there are considerable logistical and financial barriers to setting up hub conferences. The Company of Biologists is looking at ways to help the community overcome these barriers…”

The ‘hub’ conference model  – where regional groups meet and then connect and share with others to make a larger meeting –  seems a promising way forward. It maintains the all-important social aspect of conferences while limiting environmentally-damaging international travel. The problem is that there are considerable logistical and financial barriers to setting up hub conferences. The Company of Biologists is looking at ways to help the community overcome these barriers and plan to recruit a ‘Sustainable Conferencing’ officer whose aim would be to develop and oversee a series of measures to support conference organisers with exactly the type of initiatives laid out in this paper, including logistical and technical support for hub conferences. You’ll be hearing more about this in the months to come. 

Aidan Maartens, Community Manager of the Node

“I’m left thinking that TAGC 2020 did an amazing job in going virtual – a credit to their organisation – and that e-conferences can be a fun and valuable substitute for the real event.”

I’ve been part of two very different online conferences in the last few weeks – the first one as co-organiser. The BSDB meeting was five days before it was meant to start – very deflating but certainly the right decision by the organisers (we were pre-lockdown but the situation was very tense and uncertain, and things were obviously escalating). We got in touch with the organisers about putting some things online and ended up asking participants to provide slides, posters and pre-recorded talks where they could (uploaded to figshare or Youtube, and then collated on the Node). We had a lot of great posters and I think the ‘Tweetorials’ worked very well as a substitute for giving a talk. We also got to chat to some of the housebound plenary speakers in video interviews. I enjoyed being a part of it especially at that uncertain time. In a way it was an act of rebellion against the virus – you took away the meeting but we’ll keep going! Given that we only had a few days to organise I’m happy with the way it turned out – we didn’t have time for instance to organise live video talks, but allowing many ECRs to share their work and seeing the interactions on Twitter was gratifying.

The TAGC 2020 online experience (which is actually still going with poster sessions this week and workshops going on till June) was a different beast entirely. I was very impressed with the set up – all done via Zoom, with chairs introducing the speakers and relaying questions through the Q&A functionality, and everyone speaking via their homes. In all the sessions I attended, the only technical hitches seemed to stem from slow internet speeds in speakers’ houses – this is something to consider if, for instance, you want to globalise conferences and extend opportunities to countries where good internet is not guaranteed. I’ve encountered more technical hitches in normal conferences (switching adapters, scratchy microphones, overheating projectors etc.), and more distractions too when sitting in the audience (loud typers, whispered conversations, humming air conditioners etc.).

The Q&A format seems much more inclusive than at a normal conference, presumably because asking a question in a room full of people can be very daunting. Moreover, the Q&A chat room extended after the speaker had finished speaking, so even if your question wasn’t read out, it could be answered later. This could presumably be rolled out to in-person conferences. There was also a lot of interaction on Slack, but, at least for me I would have interacted with more people at an in-person event – perhaps this reflects my personality or the need for e-conference organisers to think about ways to be creative in getting people together (e.g. in a speed dating style).

I’m left thinking that TAGC 2020 did an amazing job in going virtual – a credit to their organisation – and that e-conferences can be a fun and valuable substitute for the real event.

Giulia Paci, UCL/MRC Lab for Molecular Cell Biology, London, UK 

“The local hub idea sounds great… the only scenario where I foresee some difficulties for early career researchers is while networking for one’s next position…”

I am wondering what will happen to “unpublished data” – you know, the kind of new and exciting things you would hear at a Gordon conference – I think many people will be concerned with confidentiality in an online format. Are students going to be allowed to upload their posters online, accessible to thousands of people with little control (anyone can take screenshots, for example). I know quite a few paranoid PIs who probably would not allow this… yet it can be really useful as a PhD student to get early feedback on projects at conferences.  

The local hub idea sounds great, I think participation from home would make the experience quite different. The only scenario where I foresee some difficulties for early career researchers is while networking for one’s next position – for example German PhD students wanting to move to the US for a postdoc. How would one network in such a case? Or do we expect these will be the few people still travelling overseas, applying for specific funding to do so? 

I would also stress the idea of no printed materials and less gadgets (I think this is also in the preprint maybe). It’s one thing which has often bothered me – people come back with so much junk from conferences! 

Anne Straube, University of Warwick, UK – current BSCB Meetings Secretary

“I would agree that there are too many meetings right now – the same people travelling everywhere to deliver the same talks again and again. Promoting the idea of small workshops could help, but this holds the danger of further disadvantaging communities that already have little access to such meetings. The way forward, for in-person meetings, is to work closely with the scientific societies that host regional and local conferences – perhaps via the hub option discussed in the preprint.”

Pedro Pereira, Investigator, TQB-UNL, Lisbon, Portugal – and co-organiser of SPAOM 2020

“A model with mainly virtual conferences can also end up discriminating against disadvantaged groups, and I didn’t really see that addressed in the paper.”

I think the arguments put forward in the preprint make a lot of sense, but I have a few concerns: 

1) I fear that fully open virtual conferences could kill the sharing of unpublished data. Conferences that end up as a boring highlight of published data might be one of the reasons why “44% mentioned that these conferences had “no perceptible impacts” on their research projects, programmes or policies”. We all know that if people do not engage, conferences are basically useless and virtual conferences open to all might make that a more common problem. My suggestion is that, rather than having all conferences open to all people, you could have non-profit pay-per-view based conference attendance where you can only watch if you register with an institutional email and pay a small fee that covers organisational costs (like softwares that detect is the talk is being filmed and things like that, or more if they fund travel grants, see point 2).  Hence, people would have to register beforehand, you would have an attendance registry, and, like the GRC, you would have to sign a non-disclosure form. 

2) A model with mainly virtual conferences can also end up discriminating against disadvantaged groups, and I didn’t really see that addressed in the paper.  Virtual conferences do not have the valuable bonus of allowing people to approach other people and talk in person, that’s obvious, and the local “in person” gatherings are not a solution because once again they can discriminate massively against people from less wealthy countries. A workshop in London with people from UCL, FCI, Imperial and so on is not the same as a workshop in Lisbon (I talk about London and Lisbon as cities that I’ve worked in, but it’s easy to find more striking examples). Further, the advantage of in person conferences is that, regardless of where you are from, you can easily approach someone. I imagine that might be a bit harder to achieve virtually. Hence, I think a compromise has to be reached, where we retain smaller international conferences, no bigger than your average GRC (~150 people), organised in a very similar way to the GRCs, namely prioritising unpublished data and social activities so that people know each other and increase travel grants considerably with priority for ECR from less rich countries. This would be funded by people paying to attend the conference virtually. A way to make people keen on this could be to give priority in the questions to virtual attendees. 

Sharon Ahmad, Executive Editor JCS, The Company of Biologists, Cambridge, UK 

“Coffee breaks, lunch queues, walking to a talk, taking the lift, catching the conference coach, even waiting in the airport/at the train station – this is when a lot of conversations start and can lead to lasting relationships. I am interested to see what the future holds for conferences, and accept that we can’t go on how we have in the past, but I will mourn the loss of personal interactions!” 

As someone who both attends and hosts conferences, I can’t see that any of the suggestions come close to addressing what I think of as the biggest benefit of attending conferences: the ‘in between’ interactions. Coffee breaks, lunch queues, walking to a talk, taking the lift, catching the conference coach, even waiting in the airport/at the train station – this is when a lot of conversations start and can lead to lasting relationships. 

I think other things are easier to achieve. I like the idea of a ‘scores on the doors’ approach to gender balance for meetings. Every conference should make it clear what the split is. At the last JCS meeting we tried a number of initiatives to promote ECRs. We did ask for questions from them first, but as I’ve seen at other meetings, they often find it too daunting to be the first ones to speak. We had lots of slots for short talks, and reduced the number of long talks to fit them in. But the most popular and successful was ‘speed dating’, where people talked to someone for a few minutes, then switched when we rang a bell. We had fantastic feedback on that – ECRs and PIs who might not have spoken, and reports of collaborations being formed from that.

I am interested to see what the future holds for conferences, and accept that we can’t go on how we have in the past, but I will mourn the loss of personal interactions!

Sian Culley, UCL MRC Lab for Molecular Cell Biology, London, UK – founder of the RMS Gender Equality Resource and

Gail McConnell, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK 

While [increasing the capacity for giving remote presentations] helps groups such as female professors, group leaders, and senior postdocs who may be invited to speak, this still does not help amplify the voices of junior postdocs and PhD students. These are groups that could very much benefit from more of a shift in conference format and especially conference ‘culture’.

Most researchers are familiar with the concept of the ‘leaky pipeline’: the phenomenon whereby the proportion of female researchers relative to male researchers decreases with seniority. Within the constraints of the most commonly-used conference structures – e.g. keynote speakers, invited speakers, accepted oral presentations, accepted poster presentations – conference organisers often struggle to secure a gender-balanced group of invited speakers, especially for fields in the physical sciences. This can be for several reasons, including unconscious bias against women and a lack of awareness of appropriate female scientists in the field. However, one major problem is that in fields with a small pool of female researchers possessing the traditional requirements for an ‘invited speaker’, there is often a collection of women who get invited to speak at a large number of conferences. This puts enormous pressure on these researchers – should they reject these invitations, many feel that they are contributing to the problem of under-representation of women at conferences, but should they accept these invitations this can put large strains on their personal and professional lives due to the amount of travelling required. The role of many female researchers in caring roles for family members (not just limited to children, but also elderly and disabled relatives, which is often overlooked) frequently exacerbates this.

One way of ensuring more gender-balanced line-ups of invited speakers is to cast the net wider e.g. invite women from earlier career stages to speak. However, this may be perceived as unfair on more senior male researchers who feel ‘overlooked’ for invited speaker opportunities. A straightforward solution to this would be specifically allocating some invited speaker slots only to early career researchers, so that career stage diversity becomes more integrated within conference structures, thus opening another avenue to allow women and other under-represented groups to present.

Increasing the capacity for giving remote presentations should definitely help to alleviate the pressure on senior female researchers to undertake frequent travelling. While these options help groups such as female professors, group leaders, and senior postdocs who may be invited to speak, this still does not help amplify the voices of junior postdocs and PhD students. These are groups that could very much benefit from more of a shift in conference format and especially conference ‘culture’. This would involve a greater number of discussion and networking sessions that don’t rely on the presence of ‘prestigious’ senior speakers, allowing more junior female researchers to engage more actively in scientific meetings without worrying that they have been invited to participate due to tokenism. Furthermore, it is important that such sessions are not implicitly associated with drinking; while alcohol at ‘networking’ sessions can help people relax and talk more, it can also unfortunately make women quite vulnerable. Alcohol-free networking events during core hours should be encouraged to widen participation from all members of the community, irrespective of carer responsibilities, personal or religious beliefs.

Madhuja Samaddar, Postdoctoral Fellow, Calico Life Sciences

Finally, even though I enjoyed the flexibility of tuning in to talks on demand [during the massive TAGC online conference] from the comfort of my home and at my chosen hour, I did miss the ability to excuse myself from all other professional and domestic commitments for a few days and immerse myself in the meeting. A relatively small tradeoff, I guess!

The preprint by Sarabipour et al. does a commendable job at analyzing what’s broken in the existing scientific conference system and provides comprehensive suggestions about reinventing it. As a woman, an ECR and also having been a graduate student in a developing nation, I can personally (and painfully) relate to the challenges highlighted by the authors. The recent online avatar of TAGC organized by the Genetics Society of America (GSA) served as the perfect pilot experiment that tested a number of these recommendations on a scale possibly unlike anything before this. Although spurred by the ongoing global crisis rather than by design, for many researchers across the world including myself, this was the first taste of a fully online major scientific conference. I wasn’t even planning to attend the original TAGC this year, so the online version definitely opened up a possibility that didn’t exist before, regardless of the pandemic. I greatly appreciated the flexibility of being able to attend talks in parallel sessions without the ‘fear of missing out’, as well as the ability to visit recorded talks later. It is remarkable that GSA pulled this off so successfully with so little time for preparation.

 While I am in complete agreement with the authors about the pressing need for reforms and the guidelines that they provide, I have a few concerns:

First, an issue with future meetings relying very heavily on the preprint culture for dialogue is that preprints are still not mainstream enough, outside of a handful of countries (another important preprint by Abdill et al.). Therefore, the use of preprints to facilitate discussion and feedback could continue to disproportionately benefit only researchers from certain geographic locations. The disparity in preprinting also likely differs between scientific communities (specific model organisms versus the general cell biology community, for example). Changing this will require a more extensive change in mindset globally and broader acceptance of preprints as a valid form of scholarly communication.

Also, sharing entire posters online for anyone to access and potentially save could be likely perceived as a threat by many labs, pushing people away from sharing unpublished work.

Second, the networking aspect of meetings is undoubtedly the most valuable for any ECR attendee. Many strategies have been laid out to at least partially recreate these opportunities in the vision for future meetings, but they cannot really stand in for many aspects of these interactions. Again, I think the suggestions are just the initial steps and there is a long road ahead of us. Maybe we will eventually just accept it as the new normal, as we have with so many other things.

Finally, even though I enjoyed the flexibility of tuning in to talks on demand from the comfort of my home and at my chosen hour, I did miss the ability to excuse myself from all other professional and domestic commitments for a few days and immerse myself in the meeting. A relatively small tradeoff, I guess!

Caron Jacobs, Postdoctoral Fellow, UCT Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, Cape Town, South Africa

Without these [interacting with, and learning from people from elsewhere] diverse interactions and the friendships and collaborations that form from them, are we at risk of research, particularly in smaller and more poorly-resourced communities, becoming even more regionally silo’d than it already can be, based on distribution of resources and local policies etc?

• Stable high-bandwidth internet is not uniformly available across many regions of developing countries – the infrastructure is often unreliable and data can be very expensive. The use of hubs, as opposed to fully-digital meetings where everyone attends from their home (so, after COVID and global lockdown) solves this problem partly – institutions should be able to provide bandwidth, if not always stability. But yes, I agree completely with you that internet access should be a human right – not just for conferencing, but for education at all stages of life, innovation and commerce, and freedom of speech and communication.
• I’m not sure how to get around two things that physically travelling to a meeting provide you: (1) A break from your daily routine and responsibilities, so you can focus on the science and connecting with people. We already know that attending a big conference in your home city is a very different experience to attending one that you travelled to get to – life seems to intrude much more! This might be even more so for those with teaching and family responsibilities – as we are already seeing with diverse WFH struggles. And (2) those in-person connections – which as you say are often so serendipitous, and not necessarily directly related to the content of the conference, but can nevertheless be important for career and personal development. I acknowledge that that’s already a privileged position – so many who don’t have the chance to go to conferences, or have other responsibilities, don’t experience those things anyway. So then, it’s a sort of levelling of the playing field, and the expectation is that democratisation of the conference content makes up for that loss to the smaller number of researchers and their science.
• The hybrid approach – gathering at hubs and then virtual conferencing between those hubs, partly provides some of that mentioned above. But I still feel like it’s missing the massive value that is gleaned from interacting with, and learning from people from elsewhere, who are different and have had distinct experiences, especially for students and ECRs.
• Without these diverse interactions and the friendships and collaborations that form from them, are we at risk of research, particularly in smaller and more poorly-resourced communities, becoming even more regionally silo’d than it already can be, based on distribution of resources and local policies etc?
• I think the post-pandemic future will hold a mixture of virtual and modified in-person meetings. Perhaps some rationing of how many meetings one can travel to, and how far, in a given period will be recommended for researchers in the future, but I have no idea how that can be enforced. You also mentioned making meetings longer, to justify the commitment and carbon-cost. It makes sense, but the introvert in me recoils – there will need to be programmed down time as much as programmed social engagement and networking, or us introverts will leave broken and hesitant to attend too often!
• This whole discussion has been about conferences, but many of the same problems could be highlighted about workshops and courses – with the exception that they are usually a bit longer, smaller, and have a higher ECR:PI ratio. If these can be preserved at a larger proportion for travel and IRL participation, then the opportunity for in-person engagement and relationship building, which is reduced for ECRs with a switch to virtual meetings, will at least be partly preserved through these valuable events (although more for students and early-stage post-docs than for those in the job market).
• I think fields will benefit from centralised portal(s) where all the online material that will be produced through virtual meetings is collected and curated. The volume of information will be huge!

(6 votes)

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Data from time-lapse experiments is often displayed in a graph or plot, to visualize the dynamics of biological systems (Goedhart, 2020). Ironically, the perception of the dynamics is largely lost in a static plot. That’s where animated plots come in. Animated plots are a great way to display the dynamics of the underlying data. Below, I provide a walk-through for creating an animated time series using R in Rstudio (footnote 1). The final result looks like this:

Static plot

The basis for the animation is a static plot. So I start with a brief explanation of how to generate a plot from time-series data (a more detailed explanation of plotting timeseries data can be found in a previous blog). First we load the ggplot2 package that is used for plotting:

>require(ggplot2)

Next, we can read the file, which contains the data in a ‘tidy’ format (to transform your own wide, spreadsheet data into tidy format see this blog) and assign it to the dataframe df_tidy:

>df_tidy <- read.csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JoachimGoedhart/Animate-Labeled-TimeSeries/master/FRET-ratio-tidy.csv")

We can generate an ordinary line plot from the dataframe df_tidy:

>ggplot(df_tidy, aes(x=Time, y=Ratio, color=Cell)) + geom_line()

This is the result:

Adding dynamics

Animated plots can be generated with the gganimate package and we will be using functions from the magick package for saving GIFs and so both are loaded:

>require(gganimate)
>require(magick)

To turn the static plot into an animated plot, we add the function transition_reveal(Time) to reveal the data over time:

>ggplot(df_tidy, aes(x=Time, y=Ratio, color=Cell)) + geom_line() +
  transition_reveal(Time)

Running this command may take some time (at least a minute on my MacBook). Once it’s ready, the animation is shown in the Viewer panel in RStudio. We will discuss how to save the animation in a bit. But first we will beautify the animation by adding a vertical line that runs along:

>ggplot(df_tidy, aes(x=Time, y=Ratio, color=Cell)) + geom_line() +
  geom_vline(aes(xintercept = Time)) + transition_reveal(Time)

Another option is to add a dot instead of a line to the leading edge to indicate the time:

>ggplot(df_tidy, aes(x=Time, y=Ratio, color=Cell)) + geom_line() +
  geom_point(size=2) + transition_reveal(Time)

To save the animation, we first store it as a new object called animated_plot:

>animated_plot <- ggplot(df_tidy, aes(x=Time, y=Ratio, color=Cell)) +
  geom_line() + geom_point(size=2) + transition_reveal(Time)

One of the advantages of this step is that we can do some styling of this object. For instance, changing the default R/ggplot2 layout to a more neutral look:

>animated_plot <- animated_plot + theme_light(base_size = 16)

Remove the grid:

> animated_plot <- animated_plot + theme(panel.grid.major = element_blank(), panel.grid.minor = element_blank())

Remove the legend:

> animated_plot <- animated_plot + theme(legend.position="none")

Now we can render the animation and assign it to the object animation. The number of frames in the animation can be specified and it makes sense to use the number of time-points (footnote 2).

>animation <- animate(animated_plot, nframes=70, renderer=magick_renderer())

The animation can be displayed in the Viewer panel in RStudio by entering its name in the command line:

>animation

To save the animation as a GIF in the working directory, run:

>image_write_gif(animation, 'animation.gif')

This is the resulting GIF with the animation:

Finally, moving labels can be added to the animation:

>animated_plot <- animated_plot + geom_label(aes(x = Time, y=Ratio, label=Cell), nudge_x = 10, size=4, hjust=0)

This needs to be rendered again before it can be displayed or saved:

>animation <- animate(animated_plot, nframes=70, renderer=magick_renderer())

Saving this as a GIF will give the animation that is shown at the start of this blog.

Final words

I like the animated plot as it elegantly displays the dynamics of the data. The animated plot can be combined with a movie of the process. But that will be a topic for a next blog…

A Shout-out to: Thomas Lin Pedersen who is the driving force behind the wonderful gganimate package. The code that was used here is based on this example: https://github.com/thomasp85/gganimate/wiki/Temperature-time-series

Footnotes

Footnote 1: If you are familiar with R you may skip the tutorial and try this R-script: https://github.com/JoachimGoedhart/Animate-Labeled-TimeSeries

Footnote 2: The default for generating high-quality GIFs is the Gifski renderer, but I had some issues with the rendering. To use the default type and save enter:

>animate(animated_plot, 70, renderer = gifski_renderer("animation.gif"))

(7 votes)

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Dear Developmental Biologists,

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Node for the chance to write a post about JoVE and how our resources can be beneficial for the research and teaching of developmental biology and multiple other disciplines.

All researchers will be familiar with the challenges of replicating an experiment you’ve read in a paper, or learning a new technique in the lab. Spending hours looking through reference lists or trying to work out exactly what is meant by “shake vigorously” or “aspirate gently”. In an ideal world you ask someone who knows the technique to show you how, but with the global nature of scientific research, time restraints and physical distance means this isn’t always possible. But what if a researcher on the other side of the world could show you how to perform their methodology at any time of day with no travel costs involved? This is where JoVE comes in!

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1) Poor reproducibility and low transparency of biological experiments

2) The time, labour, and cost intensive nature of learning new experimental techniques

With technology so ubiquitous in our everyday lives, it stands to reason that we should harness its power in scientific research and education.

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Thawing, Culturing, and Cryopreserving Drosophila Cell Lines

A Static Self-Directed Method for Generating Brain Organoids from Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Genotyping and Quantification of In Situ Hybridization Staining in Zebrafish

Whole Mount Immunohistochemistry in Zebrafish Embryos and Larvae

Cell-cell Fusion of Genome Edited Cell Lines for Perturbation of Cellular Structure and Function

Human Egg Maturity Assessment and Its Clinical Application

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Our Science Education collections cover a range of lab techniques valuable to developmental biologists from very basic skills such as centrifugation, volume measurements, and pipetting, to more advanced developmental biology specific techniques such as culturing embryonic stem cells, explant culture, and genetic engineering of model organisms.

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During the current COVID-19 pandemic, JoVE is aiding universities, colleges and secondary schools in the transition to online teaching by providing free access to all of our educational content until the 15th of June 2020. So now is the perfect time to try it out. Just head to www.jove.com to activate your free trial, and take a look at our faculty resource center for help setting up remote access for your students.

We are constantly adding to our content with new educational resources released all the time, and 150 new journal articles published each month. However, this does not mean that we prize quantity over quality. We believe carefully produced, peer-reviewed scientific videos represent the best way for scientists to share a new technique, and for researchers and students to learn from it. With every video, we aim to drive the next breakthrough in science research and education.

So remember, the next time you are in the lab or want to boost student performance, check JoVE first.

Rebecca Ellerington, Curriculum Specialist UK and Ireland

(2 votes)

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Like many science enthusiasts, I read the book The Double Helix when I was a student. It’s a dramatic tale of how American geneticist James Watson and British molecular biologist Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA back in the early 1950s. Of course, being written by Watson himself, it’s no surprise that he’s the dashing hero of the story.

But there are so many more overlooked names and wonderful stories that deserve to be told, even around something as seemingly well-documented as DNA. Someone who’s spent plenty of time unearthing them is Gareth Williams, author of ‘Unravelling the Double Helix: The Lost Heroes of DNA.’

The names of James Watson and Francis Crick are inextricably linked with the discovery of the DNA double helix. And if you’ve been paying attention, you’ll also know that credit is due to Rosalind Franklin, Maurice Wilkins and Ray Gosling too. But what about Elwyn Beighton, Fred Griffith or Rudolf Signer?

In this episode we’re unwinding history to uncover some of the less well-known stories behind the discovery of the structure and function of DNA.

Genetics Unzipped is the podcast from The Genetics Society. Full transcript, links and references available online at GeneticsUnzipped.com

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This year the Node hits double digits – our first post was published way back on April 1, 2010 (we’re now at over three and a half thousand posts and counting, and get over thirty thousand page views a month). We’ll be celebrating this developmental milestone with a look over some of our favourite content of the decade, but we’re also thinking of ways to move forward and stay relevant to researchers the world over. So we’ve designed a user survey that covers various aspects of how the Node works and what more we could be doing. We are a community site and would love to get a widespread response, so please consider taking the survey and telling your colleagues about it. Here’s the link:

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/theNode2020

If you’re interested in getting involved with the Node in lockdown, you can also check out this recent post for writing ideas.

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Matteo A. Molè & Andrew J. Copp

Molè et al., Integrin-Mediated Focal Anchorage Drives Epithelial Zippering during Mouse Neural Tube Closure. Dev. Cell. 52, 321-334.e6 (2020).

Zippering is a striking phenomenon whereby two opposing epithelial tissues become progressively united in one direction over a period of time. Similar, to the travel of a zip fastener, zippering leads to forward progression of a point of fusion, and can occur over significant distances along an organ or tissue, to eventually seal an opening. This is fundamental to establish de novo continuity between two opposing epithelial layers in the embryo, or to repair a gap for example following an injury (Begnaud et al., 2016; Jacinto et al., 2001; Martin and Parkhurst, 2004).

In development, zippering can be first observed during morphogenesis of the neural tube, whereby the flat 3-layered embryo, resulting from gastrulation, undergoes a major transformation to establish the final 3D basic body plan of the future fetus. This remarkable reshaping event is driven by precise coordination between: (i) invagination of the neural plate along the midline, (ii) elevation of the neural folds to meet at the dorsal midline, and (iii) continuous progression of zippering to seal the entire rostro-caudal axis of the developing embryo (reviewed in Nikolopoulou et al., 2017).

Failure of neural tube closure results in the development of severe congenital malformations, collectively known as neural tube defects (NTDs) (Copp et al., 2013; Greene and Copp, 2014; Wallingford et al., 2013). As 0.5 to 2 in every 1000 established pregnancies are affected world-wide, the clinical implications are highly significant to our society. Open spina bifida is the most common NTD observed in new-born babies, caused by failure to complete spinal neural closure by the end of the first month of gestation (Copp et al., 2015).

Alongside the neural tube, several other organs employ epithelial zippering as a mechanism for their development: for example, the optic fissure, palatal shelves, tracheoesophageal foregut and presumptive genitalia. Failure of zippering leaves the organ unsealed, resulting in severe open defects such coloboma, cleft palate, tracheoesophageal fistula and hypospadias.

Our story started with a completely unexpected observation in 2013 which brought us to explore the mechanism behind epithelial zippering during closure of the mouse neural tube. Initially, we aimed to investigate the role of cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interactions during neural tube closure as a whole. We started examining the structure of the major ECM components including laminins, collagen IV and fibronectin, together with expression of the main integrin subunits that mediate these interactions. However, we noticed that a specific integrin receptor combination, a5b1, localised precisely at the site of zippering. Furthermore, it did not seem a coincidence that this site was also enriched for thick radially-oriented fibrils of fibronectin, which represents the central interacting ligand of a5b1 integrin (Figure 1).

Therefore, we decided to embark on a highly risky and (so it turned out) long experimental route to genetically inactivate the integrin b1 subunit, to assess if the inability to interact with fibronectin at this site would affect propagation of zippering. The integrin b1 knockout mouse dies early in development (Fassler and Meyer, 1995; Stephens et al., 1995) so we had to use conditional genetic approaches. We targeted the neuroepithelium, as the precursor of the neural tube, and we separately targeted the surface ectoderm, that connects to the neuroepithelium at the zippering point. The experiments showed that integrin b1 expression is required on surface ectoderm cells, and its inactivation impaired fusion leading to highly penetrant spina bifida. This discovery was a really exciting and rewarding moment of our research. However, we then had another important question to answer: how do these local cell-ECM interactions, via integrin receptor a5b1, mediate progression of zippering and closure of the neural tube?

It took a long time to find the missing piece of the puzzle to solve the above question. At the beginning, we looked at  the cytoskeleton, cellular protrusions, cell death and cell proliferation, which are all downstream of the highly intricate integrin signalling network (Barczyk et al., 2010; Lowell and Mayadas, 2012; Schwartz, 2010). However, we could not find a clear answer by exploring any of these avenues. A very inspiring study was the paper from Edwin Munro’s group (Hashimoto et al., 2015) which involved live imaging of neural tube zippering in the ascidian Ciona intestinalis. The authors described a process of sequential cell junction shortening at the site of zippering. Therefore, we decided to zoom in and look at the cell shapes in the closing mouse neural tube and, similar to Ciona, we noticed that cells around the site of zippering had significantly shorter junctions compared to those that had not yet entered the zippering point. In very elegant geometry, the cells adopted a wedge shaped morphology and formed a semi-rosette configuration which converged precisely to a central fulcrum where the integrins localised (Figure 1). In the targeted mutant embryos, the semi-rosette was severely disrupted which prevented the cell junctions from converging.

At this time, we submitted the paper and received very positive responses. However, we faced a further big challenge: one of the reviewers asked us to live image the process to see if indeed the dynamics of cell shape change and junction remodelling, as predicted by our model, could be observed in vivo. Live imaging of mouse neural tube closure is technically very challenging, as the embryos need to be maintained in culture in a healthy state, with optimal heartbeat, and yet need to be static for confocal imaging. The work from Lee Niswander’s group (Massarwa and Niswander, 2013) had shown that live imaging of mouse embryos is possible, but their images lacked the resolution we needed to visualise individual cell behaviour. We decided to take on the challenge and, after many attempts and long evenings and weekends spent in the confocal room, we finally managed to get images with sufficient cellular resolution. Thanks to the exceptional dissecting skills of Gabriel Galea, we made a small hole through the yolk sac and amnion to expose the closing spinal neural folds, and then kept the embryo steady on an agarose surface using an implanted microsurgical needle. The embryos were very healthy – their hearts beat vigorously – but this meant we had to manually acquire each z-stack and re-centre the region of interest each time!

Despite all the effort, the result was worth it. After a post-imaging surface subtraction, to remove the underlying tissue, we could clearly see for the first time the live behaviour of the cells and how zippering propagates along the body axis. Cells in close proximity to the site of fusion display shorter proximal junctions than cells that have not yet entered the fusion site. Within a 15 minute time-frame, cells close to the zippering point further shorten their proximal junctions and become incorporated into the semi-rosette configuration around a common vertex (Figure 2). This process of junctional remodelling brings cells from the two sides of the neural folds into contact for the first time, converging at the shared site of integrin-mediated anchorage. Once in contact, cells within the semi-rosette establish new junctions with their contralateral counterparts, and then exit the semi-rosette into the region of surface ectoderm that overlies the closed neural tube. In this way, zippering is able to progress, as new cells bordering the open region undergo the same cycle of sequential constriction and semi-rosette formation.

Figure 2. Live imaging of surface ectoderm cells during zippering propagation. Individual cells shorten their proximal junctions over time (a) to form the semi-rosette configuration (c) and then exit the zippering point rostrally (d, e), with further cell elongation. 

While the two classical models of epithelial fusion, contraction of an actomyosin cable and protrusion-mediated cell migration, are undoubtedly important in closure, the precise travel of the zipper over long distances, as in neural tube formation, cannot be explained by either of those mechanisms. Genetic or pharmacological disruption of the cytoskeleton does not halt spinal zippering (Escuin et al., 2015) and, while cellular protrusions make the first contacts at the zippering point (Rolo et al., 2016) we found they were intact in embryos lacking integrin b1. Zippering relies instead on small localised cell junctional rearrangements mediated by the action of integrin α5b1. Coordinated adhesion toward a common site of basal anchorage, probably involving fibronectin, brings pairs of contralaterally positioned cells into close proximity (Figure 3). This intermediate state of cell-ECM anchorage is crucial for the subsequent maturation and extension of novel cell-cell junctions between opposing cells, promoting closure and enabling progression of zippering.

Indeed, a recent whole-exome sequencing study of families affected by NTDs identified variants in the integrin b1-encoding gene, ITGB1, among affected individuals, suggesting ITGB1 as a key predisposing gene in human NTDs  (Lemay et al., 2018). The strong similarity between the open lesion in our mouse model and the condition of lumbo-sacral spina bifida in humans, emphasises the possibility that integrin-mediated anchorage may represent a conserved mechanism for neural tube zippering in humans as well as mice. Hence, impaired integrin function could represent a potentially significant risk factor in the aetiology of open spina bifida.

References:

Barczyk, M., Carracedo, S., and Gullberg, D. (2010). Integrins. Cell Tissue Res. 339, 269–280.

Begnaud, S., Chen, T., Delacour, D., Mège, R.-M., and Ladoux, B. (2016). Mechanics of epithelial tissues during gap closure. Curr. Opin. Cell Biol. 42, 52–62.

Copp, A.J., Stanier, P., and Greene, N.D.E. (2013). Neural tube defects: recent advances, unsolved questions, and controversies. Lancet Neurol. 12, 799–810.

Copp, A.J., Adzick, N.S., Chitty, L.S., Fletcher, J.M., Holmbeck, G.N., and Shaw, G.M. (2015). Spina bifida. Nat. Rev. Dis. Prim. 1, 15007.

Escuin, S., Vernay, B., Savery, D., Gurniak, C.B., Witke, W., Greene, N.D.E., and Copp, A.J. (2015). Rho-kinase-dependent actin turnover and actomyosin disassembly are necessary for mouse spinal neural tube closure. J. Cell Sci. 128, 2468–2481.

Fassler, R., and Meyer, M. (1995). Consequences of lack of beta 1 integrin gene expression in mice. Genes Dev. 9, 1896–1908.

Greene, N.D.E., and Copp, A.J. (2014). Neural tube defects. Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 37, 221–242.

Hashimoto, H., Robin, F.B., Sherrard, K.M., and Munro, E.M. (2015). Sequential contraction and exchange of apical junctions drives zippering and neural tube closure in a simple chordate. Dev. Cell 32, 241–255.

Jacinto, A., Martinez-Arias, A., and Martin, P. (2001). Mechanisms of epithelial fusion and repair. Nat. Cell Biol. 3, E117-23.

Lemay, P., De Marco, P., Traverso, M., Merello, E., Dionne-Laporte, A., Spiegelman, D., Henrion, É., Diallo, O., Audibert, F., Michaud, J.L., et al. (2018). Whole exome sequencing identifies novel predisposing genes in neural tube defects. Mol. Genet. Genomic Med.

Lowell, C.A., and Mayadas, T.N. (2012). Overview: studying integrins in vivo. Methods Mol. Biol. 757, 369–397.

Martin, P., and Parkhurst, S.M. (2004). Parallels between tissue repair and embryo morphogenesis. Development 131, 3021–3034.

Massarwa, R., and Niswander, L. (2013). In toto live imaging of mouse morphogenesis and new insights into neural tube closure. Development 140, 226–236.

Nikolopoulou, E., Galea, G.L., Rolo, A., Greene, N.D.E., and Copp, A.J. (2017). Neural tube closure: cellular, molecular and biomechanical mechanisms. Development 144, 552–566.

Rolo, A., Savery, D., Escuin, S., de Castro, S.C., Armer, H.E.J., Munro, P.M.G., Molè, M.A., Greene, N.D.E., and Copp, A.J. (2016). Regulation of cell protrusions by small GTPases during fusion of the neural folds. Elife 5, e13273.

Schwartz, M.A. (2010). Integrins and extracellular matrix in mechanotransduction. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol. 2.

Stephens, L.E., Sutherland, A.E., Klimanskaya, I. V, Andrieux, A., Meneses, J., Pedersen, R.A., and Damsky, C.H. (1995). Deletion of beta 1 integrins in mice results in inner cell mass failure and peri-implantation lethality. Genes Dev. 9, 1883–1895.

Wallingford, J.B., Niswander, L.A., Shaw, G.M., and Finnell, R.H. (2013). The continuing challenge of understanding, preventing, and treating neural tube defects. Science 339, 1222002.

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IRIBHM is a research institute of the Medical School of the Free University of Brussels (Université Libre de Bruxelles, ULB). The institute offers an internationally prominent research environment in molecular biology and life sciences, that engage different topics that span receptor pharmacology and new therapeutic targets discovery, early embryonic development, neurobiology, stem cells and cancer. The institute has trained over the years a number of talented young scientists both at the graduate and postdoctoral levels.

In order to expand internationally and keep rising its level of excellence, the IRIBHM (https://iribhm.org/) launches an international graduate programme in order to prepare the future leaders in biomedical sciences. At least 2 PhD scholarships are available. The successful candidates will have the opportunity to work in a warm and stimulating research environment aligned with the highest international standards.

As the administrative center of the European Union, Brussels is a perfect location for an International PhD programme. In addition, the city shows an active cultural life and is hosting most nationalities from all over the world.

We look forward to welcoming you in Brussels!

Requirements:

1. Diplomas and degrees equivalent to a European Union Master’s degree, which includes project work summarized in a written “small thesis”
2. Two referees willing to provide letter of recommendations
3. Excellent knowledge of English
4. Excellent interpersonal and organisational skills

Due to COVID 19, closing date for CV and letters submission are extended: June 30.

Accepted candidates may start research projects as early as November 2020

Visit our website http://iribhmphd.ulb.be for more details and CV submission.

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We are looking for a POSTDOC to join our EVODEVO-GENOMICS lab in the University of BARCELONA.

Our lab studies the chordate model Oikopleura dioica to better the impact of gene loss on the evolution of  gene regulatory networks. In particular, our research focusses on heart development, long-non-coding RNAs and de novo genes. Click here for a tour “A day in our lab” posted in The Node

Recently, we have also engaged a new EcoEvoDevo line investigating how mechanisms of development in marine embryos respond to climate change, including biotoxins derived from algal blooms. Click here for a tour on this new EcoEvoDevo adventure.

Our approaches include single-cell, RNAseq, Embryo microinjection, RNAi, Confocal-Microscopy, Bioinformatics, population genomics and soon CRISPR

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships  |  Postdoc Call ID: H2020-MSCA-IF-2020

https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/msca-if-2020

Open April 8th – Deadline September 9th 2020. (for University of Barcelona internal procedures, the application forms should be ready by the end of July)

CONTACT: Interested postdoc candidates, please send an email to Cristian Cañestro (canestro@ub.edu) ASAP, including a brief letter of interest, a brief CV, including list of publications with their impact factor and quartile, and technical skills (specially those related with our approaches) all together in ONE single pdf file.

More info please visit our web: https://bit.ly/2Kfi3zG

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This year I had a unique experience arising from my PhD – 2 weeks giving training in Nigeria, by invitation of Prof. Amos Abolaji from the University of Ibadan. Amos established one the first Drosophila labs in Nigeria in 2014, and in 2017 he co-organized workshop with DrosAfrica – a charity I collaborate with and that you should check out. I met him after we invited him to our EMBL PhD symposium in 2018. He kindly invited me to be a trainer at a Drosophila workshop he was organizing in Abuja in March last year, and to visit his lab in Ibadan too – to do embryo collections and stainings together, but also to prepare science outreach activities and visit two schools. In this article, I am going to share my experience and perhaps convince you to take on a similar adventure too.

Warm weather, warm hearts

When I got off the plane, which arrived to Lagos at 9pm, I didn’t know what to expect. It was hot, really hot! It stayed like that for the two weeks: we had on average 40-degree days, sometimes with a sensation of more. Amos was there to pick me up, dressed in traditional Yoruban clothes. My first impression of Nigeria remained loyal to what I would experience the following two weeks: very warm weather, very colourful attires, very warm and joyful hearts. Also, it is loud, there is always sound…In fact, when I returned home, one of my strongest impressions was that Heidelberg felt extremely quiet even though I live in the centre, which can be quite noisy. The Yoruba language sounds very musical – I learned a bit but wish I had learned more. I stayed for 9 days at the University of Ibadan (UI) and 5 days in Bingham, near Abuja. It is important to note that Nigeria is very big and multiculturally diverse, so what I share mostly reflects what I witnessed more closely in the South West region. I was the only visitor for a week, and, on my 7^th day there, Dr. Alex Whitworth joined. Alex is a group leader at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit in the University of Cambridge. It was great to experience both ways: all the new things you discover on your own, fully immersed, but also having someone from a (more) similar background to share experiences with. Alex was an incredible travel buddy to whom I am super grateful, and it wouldn’t have been the same without him; he also showed me that PIs can be cool travel buddies too! Finally, I had heard before going that food was spicy. Well, food is really spicy, and portions are very generous.

No excuses

The Nigerian scientists I met had a constant mindset of “no excuses”, which comes from trying to overcome lack of resources with perseverance and creativity. This was not entirely new to me. In Portugal – where I come from and where I started working the bench – there is also this attitude. We had to plan seriously and we would coordinate with neighbouring labs to make sure resources were used to the maximum. At EMBL the conditions are very different, as we are quite wealthy and I would say a lot of people (including myself) are spoiled. There are a lot of things we don’t have to worry about such as preparing buffers, animal diet, washing our glassware etc.

We have the tendency to believe that science is objective and therefore democratic. But science is made by humans, and the socioeconomic context plays a huge role in the opportunities people have to realize their potential. If I felt a resource gap after travelling 2000 km between Portugal and Germany, this was even greater with the 6700 km between Heidelberg and Ibadan. I am not talking about not having fancy equipment. I am talking about, for example, not having constant power supply. What does that imply? It implies that you need to spend so much more time caring for the animals – flies in this case – which would be happier less 10-15 degrees Celsius of heat. It implies that you might have to run experiments until 5am because electricity is more stable during the evening. I met students who literally did this. And these students often face overscrutinity of their research credentials by recruiters in US/EU institutions, without taking into account the context and resources in place. Excellent people who dream about great experiments to their bold hypotheses, but sometimes cannot perform these tests with what is available to them. But still, they say “no excuses” – they are very creative to always find a way to improvise. This was true both for the Abolaji lab in UI and also the Bingham workshop participants I met in Abuja. I had heard Amos talk about the lack of power supply when he visited EMBL, but these are things you have to see for yourself to really grasp it. It is important, for the less aware, not to confound excellence gaps with resource gaps. And importantly, in Amos’ lab they share a lot of their equipment with other labs in the department. Since they have a KVA inverter to make up for power shortages, they even share power sockets: I often saw visitors coming in just to use their laptops and plug them in or charge their phones. This contrasted a lot to me with what I have seen in some Western labs, sometimes in the same institute, not wanting to share machines or reagents.

Adapting to your context

The culture I am used to doing science & science outreach in (from my experience in Portugal, UK, Denmark and Germany) is different from the culture of Nigeria. Again, this was not my first cultural shock, as I experienced it by moving abroad, first to the UK and then to Germany. Even after almost 3 years in Germany, I still struggle to adapt to some things. I also had been to Africa before, but it had been 10 years since I was there last, and this time it was for work, not vacation, and on my own, not with my family.

I love making plans and scheduling things to the detail. I am not super punctual, but with African time, there was never a dull moment. Even after some days of realizing that the pace of life was different, our brains are so wired in habits that Nigeria found ways to surprise me everyday. And I think that is great! In EMBL, if a seminar is at 1pm, it starts latest at 1.05pm. In Portugal, the lights of the amphitheatre would probably still be off at 1.05pm, and the audience joins around a quarter past. I felt that in Nigeria it was even more flexible. But this also needs to be put into context. Sometimes I was surprised by some breaks during the middle of the day, but it made sense because we experienced such hot weather (hot even for Nigerians themselves!), that it made more sense to continue going after it cooled a bit off in the evening, and we could stay until late. We made it to a domestic flight after arriving to the airport 15 minutes before departure, which was quite an adventure for me, but the friends I made there assured me that there usually is no “African time” for flights! In terms of planning, I would just say that no amount of planning is too much!

I was used to certain health and safety measures from Europe, for example for dealing with chemicals. Guess what, if you don’t have many resources, it is hard to handle chemicals with such care. For me that was initially quite a shock, but eventually that shock grew into respect of the scientists I met who have to make much more sacrifices, including health and safety ones, to carry on with their experiments.

For me, the biggest lesson was that it takes more than ‘adapting’ to fully learn and grow from such an experience. You can go along new circumstances but still be making judgements on your mind, rejecting the new reality because it is done different from what you are used to. It is the jump from that to accepting and embracing it that makes all the difference. If I could go back in time, I wish I had resisted change less in my mind and had learned to accept it quicker, because without judgement you can live better in the present moment and make the most of it. Still, my new friends and fellow students there say that I adapted quite well! They would say – and this is a phrase everyone uses all the time, you just need to make eye contact with someone and you will hear it  – “well done”.

Adapting to your audience

I was also faced with cultural difference in how to do outreach. And I remembered the motto “Adapt to your audience”. Instead of resisting different ways of doing it, I realized that the local way is probably the most effective, because the audience is local too. And I believe this goes beyond science communication. If we want to contribute to scientific capacity building, we cannot think we can turn up somewhere and just impose the way we are used to doing it. Again, the contexts are so different, how could there be a one size fits all approach? Regarding the school visits, it was great that these were made as team with the Abolaji lab, who taught me a lot about how to use flexibility and improvisation and also about approachability skills with kids. As curiosity, I was surprised that every single lab member out of 6-7 that came for these visits were natural talents with kids. How come not even one was an odd one out like me? I love doing outreach but I feel very shy. In the Nigerian context, besides having big families of 3+ siblings, the big religious influence means most are used to dealing with kids and to passing on (other types of) information to them. In fact, their deep religious practice makes them great storytellers, which is a key skill for science communication. This was also a great lesson, since we can antagonize science and religion without looking into the full picture.

Outreach for development 

Being involved with DrosAfrica – which wants to use the power of Drosophila to empower scientists all across Africa and has plans underway to build a big new institute – and looking up initiatives of scientific capacity building, I didn’t quite realize until being there how relevant outreach and science communication is in this context too. I always thought that there was so much to build for the research practice per se, that I didn’t realize I was putting outreach in a “bonus” category. But the way outreach is intricately involved in research is truly universal and outreach shouldn’t be neglected by the pressure of building core resources in labs. After all, we should spark interest in the young and spread science to society to help strengthen the developing scientific structures. So, I would like to encourage professional science communicators to pay it forward and embark on similar exchanges and visits too. Take your expertise where it can be so valuable and I guarantee you will walk home having learned a lot of new things too. I wrote specifically about my school visit experience in the EMBL School Ambassador website and you can check the EMBL-Nigeria pen pal project I started with my colleague Rafael Galupa in our blog.

Combating imposter syndrome

As a PhD student, I strongly felt imposter syndrome when I was invited to train and teach, and that it was a big responsibility and investment for the little amount of knowledge I felt I could pass on. But I realized two things:

1. Even if you have less experience than a professor, you have a relatability factor that has great power speaking to young people like you.
2. I didn’t realize how many tools I have gathered from different experiences, and I was surprised to be able to go back and pick them up to share – such as a model used for a school visit or a draft structure a friend once sent me for a motivation letter I had to write. For me this underlined the interconnection of my life experiences and reminded me the hidden value of subtle things or experiences you don’t think about often anymore.

I also learned that the most effective way to contribute to scientific capacity building is to collaborate – meaning visiting, sharing expertise, sharing grants together and sharing or exchanging students. Finally, even if I am shy to admit it, I must say that I left Germany with the mindset that I was going there to teach. I was excited about this new experience, but I only realized after I arrived, that I was also going to learn A TON. And, for sure, I brought more with me than I left there. I swear that this did not come from arrogance but from naivety. If I had focused earlier on how much I would also learn, maybe I would have worried less about my imposter syndrome.

A final message 

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie

Oda-aro in Yoruba means good night, but in my heart it means seen you soon. I miss the warm friends I made there, I miss their uncontained joy, their spontaneity and generosity, their wise and serene takes on life (which actually brought me closer to religion), I miss the colourful attires in the street and the feeling like I time travelled to summer in February. I miss the hawks which flew around the UI campus and the hazy sky. I try to make it up with listening to Nigerian music almost every day and staying in touch.

When I told people around me I was going to Nigeria, a country where the travel security advice is quite grim, I was met with so much resistance and doubt – it cannot be overstated. You hear not only about petty crime or terrorism but also about regular kidnappings, and the advice not to travel by road or be out in the dark makes one realize security things we take for granted, at least I did in my quiet Heidelberg home. And yes, I was hesitant and apprehensive, but I trusted my guts and my values: I deeply believe that science is global and has to be shared. And I put my actions where my words were: I went. It was crucial for me that I had the support of DrosAfrica and that I trusted my host – who was incredible – and this is something you should take into account too. Everything went fine, but I lived a very controlled life: I never left campus or walked around after dark without company; for the outreach, we visited gated schools with security; our accommodation was chosen strategically; between Ibadan and Abuja, we took a plane instead of the road. Indeed, I heard of the precautions people take in their daily life in regards to which cabs they get into; I heard a testimony in a church service about a kidnapping that fortunately ended well. But the people I met live regular lives which didn’t seem to me to be overwhelmed by these issues. So although we had no issues, I also confirmed that indeed, the travel advice is based on threats that do exist. This for me presents an interesting paradox: if we haven’t been somewhere, we can only rely on the pictures the news gives us. But if you take precautions, that shouldn’t be a reason to stay home, because there is so much life behind the news, and even I speak humbly from a miniscule experience of 2 weeks. So much warmth, so much culture, so much diversity, news ways of living and thinking and looking at science and life and on and on…

If you read this and you are torn, please go. Prepare, take cautions, but go!

This visit had the support of DrosAfrica, for which I am very grateful. In particular, thanks to Isa Palacios for always being there. ELLS and EMBL Comms supported the school visits – thanks Eva and Verena! I am grateful to my supervisor Justin Crocker for being supportive and to several colleagues (in and out EMBL) who shared material, insight, and especially those who shared encouragement.

Don’t know where to start? Check these links out:

http://www.drosafrica.org/

https://trendinafrica.org/

https://www.clubesdeciencia.org/

https://www.icgeb.org/

https://twas.org/

http://www.afox.ox.ac.uk/

https://www.cambridge-africa.cam.ac.uk/

https://www.neurochemistry.org/international-travel-support/

https://www.crick.ac.uk/partnerships/crick-african-network

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