Catching up after the holidays, I finally got around to reading Scott Gilbert‘s recently published essay in PloS Biology. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the essay proposes that developmental biology is ‘the stem cell of biological disciplines’, and that many other areas of biology – such as cell biology, genetics, immunology, oncology and neurobiology – all grew out of developmental biology (or embryology, as it was more commonly known back then). He also discusses why it is that our field isn’t as well regarded as it should be – why, in words from former SDB president Blanche Capel reproduced in the essay, “…developmental biology does not get the credit it deserves for its contributions to understanding the natural world”. I found Gilbert’s essay fascinating and illuminating, particularly in terms of learning more about how embryologists of the 19th and 20th centuries were instrumental in the birth or growth of so many fields. While many of us are familiar with the fact that Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the founding fathers of modern genetics, was first an embryologist, and with Haeckel’s ideas of the parallels between ontogeny and phylogeny, the idea that – for example – immunology was born out of developmental biology was new to me.
Gilbert concludes his essay with three take-home messages. He makes the case for the continued importance of developmental biology as a ‘vital generative science’ that is entering ‘a new golden age’ as the field expands in new and fascinating directions (echoing Daniel St Johnston‘s essay ‘The renaissance of developmental biology‘, also published in PLoS Biology). And he argues that ‘many of the disciplines that had come from developmental biology are returning to a developmental framework’. Both these messages resonate strongly with me and, I’m sure, with many members of our community. But his first take-home message doesn’t seem quite so straightforward. Gilbert states that ‘…developmental biology is not a confined, specified discipline – such as genetics, cell biology, immunology, oncology, neurobiology and so forth’ and that ‘the descendants of developmental biology … are more differentiated and their potency much more restricted’. Now, I don’t like to challenge someone who’s promoting the importance of developmental biology (and of course I personally think it’s by far the most fascinating field of biology!), and I’ll admit to feeling somewhat uncomfortable questioning the conclusions of someone of Gilbert’s stature. But sitting in an office with the Journal of Cell Science team, I’ve always seen developmental biology as a more confined field than cell biology, and looking through the tables of contents of genetics journals, I generally feel that they span a broader area than Development. So I find this message somewhat counter-intuitive.
I largely agree with Gilbert that developmental biology is ‘not confined to any level of organization’ and ‘can be studied in any species, organ system, or biome’. And I would make the case that it goes beyond embryology, encompassing the fields of homeostasis, regeneration and ageing to span the entire life of an organism. But does this really make it ‘undifferentiated’ as Gilbert states? I won’t argue against the analogy between developmental biology and stem cells when it comes to its history of budding off new disciplines (I’m not a historian of science so I don’t have the knowledge either way!). But I do feel that he perhaps takes the analogy one step too far by saying that this makes the field ‘pluripotent’. Sure, developmental biology is a broad research area, with important interdisciplinary crossovers spanning biochemistry to behaviour, but it does have its limits – there are lots of questions in biology where the links to development are tenuous at best. And while I like the idea that developmental biology ‘regenerates itself constantly as new techniques and hypotheses become available’, I suspect you’d find many cell biologists, geneticists and others who would say the same about their fields. From my reading, Gilbert’s essay seems to be trying to make the claim that developmental biology is more creative than other fields, and I find this a little harder to swallow.
Gilbert’s essay has – quite rightly – received a fair bit of positive praise on social media, and I hope that it will help to raise the profile of developmental biology among the wider scientific community, educators and funders (in this context, I’m particularly taken by Gilbert’s Competing interests statement!). But I’m writing this post because I’m intrigued to know if my reservations chime with other readers, and to find out what other people think about this: does it really make sense to make the case for developmental biology as ‘the stem cell of biological disciplines’?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
What happens when you apply developmental biology to patients? Regenerative medicine!
Now, here are some more difficult questions: Who owns a cell-based therapy? What is a ‘minimally manipulated’ product, and should they be administered to patients if they haven’t been approved by the FDA?
In 2015, RegMedNet, the network for regenerative medicine, was launched to provide insight into the questions above, unite the diverse regenerative medicine community, and educate, inspire and move the field forward.
Regenerative medicine therapies aim to replace or regenerative human cells, tissues or organs to restore normal function where it has been lost. Every step in the regenerative medicine and cell therapy pipeline is covered on RegMedNet, from development, clinical trial and manufacture to regulation and commercialization.
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Read the latest news on new techniques, regulations and approvals
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In #TalkingRegMed episode 5, Aidan Maartens discusses how developmental biology can inform regenerative medicine.
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Want to meet us in person? We also travel around the world attending stem cell and regenerative medicine events, large and small. Below, you can watch our report from ISSCR 2017, or visit our interactive 2018 events calendar to find an event you might not know about. Interested in reporting from a conference for us? Please contact us today!
In #TalkingRegMed episode 2, Regenerative Medicine commissioning editor Adam Price-Evans shares his highlights from ISSCR 2017
New: the Award for Cultivating Excellence
Last year, we launched the Award for Cultivating Excellence to recognize achievement in other areas, such as career development and scientific outreach. We had over 50 nominations from around the world, and our first ever winner was the lab of Professor Julie Daniels, Cells for Sight, University College London (UK). You can read their lab profile and watch interviews with members of the lab on their Winner’s Spotlight page.
We haven’t opened nominations for the 2018 Award yet, but you can register your interest using the form below so you’re the first to hear!
So, that’s RegMedNet in a nutshell! Come and visit us at RegMedNet.com and sign up free for complete access to all our content and to start learning about the wonderful, and sometimes controversial, world of regenerative medicine.
Early stages of human embryo development are vital for successful pregnancy and the health of the embryo. Abnormal early development often causes infertility as well as various birth defects. Despite its scientific and clinical importance, early development of the human embryo is poorly understood due to a lack of access to human embryo specimens in vivo. In addition, the drastic differences between human and other common animal models, e.g., mice, in certain developmental stages, such as implantation, has further limited advances in early human embryology. Given the limited accessibility, as well as ethical controversies surrounding research on intact human embryos, it is of paramount importance to seek in vitro synthetic methods for studying early human embryogenic events without using a biologically complete human embryo.
To achieve this goal, our labs, as well as other research laboratories, have endeavored to develop stem cell-based synthetic approaches for advancing the fundamental understanding of early human embryology. In this post, we will take you on a retrospective tour behind our recent work on a bioengineered in vitro model for post-implantation human amniotic sac development1, which we believe is a vivid example of the type of successful, multidisciplinary collaborative research that is critical for the rising field of Synthetic Human Embryology.
Start from a void
This collaborative work started from an unexpected observation made by Ken Taniguchi in 2014, which revealed a potent capability of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) to form a lumen – an apical cavity surrounded by multiple polarized cells (hPSC-cyst) – in a culture dish under both 2D and 3D conditions2. This hPSC-cyst morphogenesis echoes the formation of an epiblastic cavity in early mammalian embryo3-5 and substantiates the potential of hPSC to model not only the differentiation but also the morphogenesis involved in early embryonic development. Inspired by this potential, we teamed up to explore something new: to reconstruct a human neural tube in a culture dish by generating 3D lumenal hPSC cysts/tubes and instructing them to undergo neuronal differentiation. However, our quest for a synthetic human neural tube turned out to be more elusive than we envisioned.
Biomimetic embryoid model by hPSC self-organization in a soft 3D niche
(Yue Shao)
After a few months, despite a number of different chemical induction protocols that we tested, our efforts to make a synthetic human neural tube still fell short; we were unable to induce dorsoventral patterning, resulting in an elongated tube with a uniform cell fate throughout the structure. Inspired by our previous successes in modulating neural differentiation of hPSC in a 2D culture system by changing the mechanics of the culture substrate6, I, being a little desperate back then, did an experiment to test whether engineering the mechanical softness of our 3D neural cyst culture system might produce the desired results. To our disappointment, neural cysts did not exhibit any intrinsic dorsoventral patterning, regardless of the mechanics of the 3D culture environment.
Fortunately, that experiment was not a total failure. Something that happened in the control group (3D culture environment without neural induction) caught our eye. Surprisingly, when cultured on a soft basement membrane gel bed with a 3D matrix overlay, hPSC started to self-organize into cystic structures enclosed by a squamous epithelium, through a continuous tissue thinning process (Movie 1)1. Along with these squamous cysts, we also observed the formation of a small population of “asymmetric cysts”, which feature a thin, squamous epithelium at one side and a thick, columnar epithelium at the other side; in this case, cysts developed through an autonomous symmetry-breaking process (Movie 2)1. Both the squamous and asymmetric cysts, to the best of our knowledge, were new structures generated for the first time in a culture dish at the time. They lit up our excitement and our wonder: What are these structures? Do they resemble any early embryonic structures?
Many guesses were put on the table during our team discussion, but one image seemed to be the key to settle the guessing game. An image found in the Carnegie Collection of Human Embryos (through the Virtual Human Embryo database) clearly showed an asymmetric cystic structure lying at the center of a post-implantation (day 12) human embryo (Figure 1), with a squamous epithelium – the amniotic ectoderm – at its roof side, and a columnar epithelium – the pluripotent epiblast, or embryonic disc – at the floor side, enveloping the amniotic cavity within. This asymmetric amniotic sac will eventually develop into the human embryo, with the enveloping amniotic membrane, and therefore is a key structure for early human embryogenesis. Given the striking morphological similarity between the post-implantation amniotic sac and the asymmetric cyst seen in our engineered soft 3D niche, we could not help but wonder: did we just generate a synthetic human amniotic sac?
Figure 1: (left) Carnegie stage 5c (day 12) human embryo section, showing the amniotic ectoderm and the embryonic disc (pluripotent epiblast). Obtained from the Virtual Human Embryo project database. (right) Phase contrast image showing a representative asymmetric cyst with a distinct bipolar morphological pattern that mirrors the in vivo human amniotic sac.
Due to the lack of an in vivo dataset of human embryos at the implantation stage, we had to carefully wade through a stream of questions to conclude that “We really synthesized an amniotic sac structure”. With effort and expertise from a group of engineers, biologists, and bioinformaticians, we first demonstrated, to the extent that we could, the molecular similarity between the hPSC-derived squamous epithelium in vitro and first-trimester human amniotic ectoderm in vivo7. This finding was further confirmed by comparing our asymmetric cysts to a new dataset from post-implantation non-human primate embryo8. These results demonstrated that the asymmetric cyst – which we named the post-implantation amniotic sac embryoid, or PASE, shows significant molecular (e.g., asymmetric activation of BMP signaling) and morphological (e.g., bipolar segregation of amniotic ectoderm and epiblast markers) resemblance to the primate post-implantation amniotic sac. Despite these exciting findings, we are still in need of more early amniotic sac datasets to fully understand this embryoid and the extent of its biomimicry.
Although this journey already took us two and a half years, it only marks the beginning of a bigger scientific endeavor to understand early human embryonic development using synthetic approaches9. Without the need of live, intact human embryo specimen, our synthetic PASE platform can be leveraged to answer a myriad of scientific questions about an early human developmental stage that has been previously inaccessible.
A model for deciphering the molecular and cellular blueprints of early human embryonic development
(Kenichiro Taniguchi)
Prior to this collaboration with Yue Shao and the laboratory of Dr. Jianping Fu, my research interest (working as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Deborah Gumucio) had been primarily in how cell polarity machinery regulates the formation or lumens during development. Initially my focus was on lumen formation in endodermally determined gut-like organoids, developed from hPSC. But I was struck by the fact that under a variety of conditions, my control cells (undifferentiated hPSC) also robustly formed lumens and grew into cystic structures! I speculated that, since hPSC resemble epiblast cells, perhaps this strong lumen-forming tendency represents the ability of the cells to self-organize to form an epiblast cavity. This was exciting, because the cell polarity aspect of human epiblast cavity formation had been relatively understudied, and for the first time, the hPSC-cyst model allowed us to pinpoint molecular and cellular processes associated with polarization of the early human epiblast, including involvement of actin cytoskeleton, as well as the highly unexpected role of an apicosome – a novel apically polarized organelle10.
While these studies led to exciting and fundamental discoveries in cell polarization, they also raised another interesting question: if this is the epiblast (or pro-amniotic) cavity, where is the amnion? Meanwhile, Yue and I were busily trying to figure out a protocol to generate dorsoventrally patterned neural tubes (which, as you know by now, was not quite successful). For my doctoral thesis work, I had worked on a mouse model of holoprocensephaly (a congenital forebrain malformation frequently caused by aberrant Shh signaling), so this was an enjoyable and stimulating project to work on. Using engineered substrates, we were getting beautiful long and branched continuous tubes of neural cells (we just could not get them patterned!). However, as Yue mentioned earlier, our non-neurally induced hPSC controls turned out to hold the most interesting data: when plated in a specific type of environment (on a thick soft gel bed, with surrounding extracellular matrix), we observed lumenal cysts composed of squamous cells. Since we were already “primed” to think about the lumen in pluripotent cysts as a potential pro-amniotic cavity, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that these squamous cells just might be amnion.
As further biological analyses led us to confirm that these squamous cyst cells were indeed of amniotic lineage, I came to appreciate the power of engineering (and this highly productive collaboration) in developing these innovative controlled 3D culture conditions, and also in generating engineered substrates, such as PDMS microposts ,to decipher mechanical properties of amniotic differentiation. These engineering tools were instrumental in testing hypotheses that would have been difficult for pure biologists to envision. In fact, in this case, our further studies showed that the amniotic fate cascade that we observed is actually initiated by a purely mechanical trigger. The discovery of self-organizing amniotic organoids (hPSC-amnion and PASE) has now expanded our toolbox to explore early human embryogenesis.
Countless additional biological questions blossomed through the generation of PASE, including those concerning the mechanisms regulating a surprising gastrulation-like cell dissemination phenotype observed in mature PASE. During human embryonic development, a major step following the establishment of the asymmetric amniotic sac is gastrulation; indeed, we saw that many PASE exhibit cells disseminating from the columnar pluripotent embryonic disc-like domain (Movie 3)1. However, we did not know whether this cell dissemination was dependent on epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (just like cells undergoing gastrulation). It is an exciting time in biology right now because we can relatively easily generate mutations in established cell lines using the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system11. Using a highly efficient CRISPR/Cas9 technique based on a piggyBac transposon system that we developed, we generated multiple hESC clones carrying different loss-of-function (LOF) mutations of the SNAI1 gene (a major transcriptional driver of EMT during gastrulation), and showed that the cell dissemination phenotype is significantly reduced in the SNAI1 LOF background. This finding confirms that, similar to gastrulation in vivo, EMT is a critical driver of cell dissemination in PASE. We are now actively seeking transcriptional regulators of associated processes, such as amnion fate determination, asymmetric morphogenesis and pluripotency maintenance.
These stages of peri- and early post-implantation human embryogenesis are critical for the continuation of a successful human pregnancy. The discovery that at least some of these early steps can be recapitulated in hPSC-derived embryoids/organoids provides an exciting new in vitro platform for advancing our understanding of early human embryogenesis. Clearly, however, future in vivo work will be required to validate findings in this model; perhaps some of this can be accomplished using techniques recently developed in Cynomolgus monkeys8. Scientifically speaking, we know that we have only touched the tip of the PASE biology iceberg and we have an endless list of questions that need to be answered.
Concluding remarks
Looking back, this collaborative work was made possible only with the tremendous efforts from our scientific collaborators and consultants as well as all members of the Fu and Gumucio laboratories at the University of Michigan. As synthetic human embryology is bound to be a highly interdisciplinary course of study, we hope our case will not only serve as a stepping stone to advance this type of research, but also an encouragement for fellow engineers, developmental and cell biologists, mathematicians, physicists, physicians, etc., to join forces and initiate fruitful interactions and collaborations to advance discovery.
Movie 1: Time-lapse movie showing the development of a squamous cyst from hPSC, through a continuous tissue-thinning process that converts an initially columnar cyst into a fully squamous one. Time stamps indicate the total hours of culture. Scale bar, 50 µm. Adapted from the original publication by Nature Publishing Group1.
Movie 2: Time-lapse movie showing dynamic morphogenesis during the development of an asymmetric cyst (which we later identified and named as the post-implantation amniotic sac embryoid, or PASE). Time stamps indicate the total hours of culture. Scale bar, 50 µm. Adapted from the original publication by Nature Publishing Group1.
Movie 3: Time-lapse movie showing the progressive emergence of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition and primitive streak-like phenotype in a PASE. Time stamps indicate the total hours of culture. Scale bar, 50 µm. Adapted from the original publication by Nature Publishing Group1.
Taniguchi, K., Shao, Y., Townshend, R. F., Tsai, Y. H., DeLong, C. J., Lopez, S. A., Gayen, S., Freddo, A. M., Chue, D. J., Thomas, D. J., Spence, J. R., Margolis, B., Kalantry, S., Fu, J. P., O’Shea, K. S. and Gumucio, D. L. Lumen formation is an intrinsic property of isolated human pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Rep.5, 954-962 (2015).
Bedzhov, I. and Zernicka-Goetz, M. Self-organizing properties of mouse pluripotent cells initiate morphogenesis upon implantation. Cell156, 1032-1044 (2014).
Shahbazi, M. N., Jedrusik, A., Vuoristo, S., Recher, G., Hupalowska, A., Bolton, V., Fogarty, N. M., Campbell, A., Devito, L. G., Ilic, D., Khalaf, Y., Niakan, K. K., Fishel, S. and Zernicka-Goetz, M. Self-organization of the human embryo in the absence of maternal tissues. Nat. Cell Biol.18, 700-708 (2016).
Shahbazi, M. N., Scialdone, A., Skorupska, N., Weberling, A., Recher, G., Zhu, M., Jedrusik, A., Devito, L. G., Noli, L., Macaulay, I. C., Buecker, C., Khalaf, Y., Ilic, D., Voet, T., Marioni, J. C. and Zernicka-Goetz, M. Pluripotent state transitions coordinate morphogenesis in mouse and human embryos. Nature552, 239-243 (2017).
Sun, Y. B., Aw Yong, K. M., Villa-Diaz, L. G., Zhang, X. L., Chen, W. Q., Philson, R., Weng, S. N., Xu, H. X., Krebsbach, P. H. and Fu, J. P. Hippo/YAP-mediated rigidity-dependent motor neuron differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells. Nature Mater.13, 599-604 (2014).
Shao, Y., Taniguchi, K., Gurdziel, K., Townshend, R. F., Xue, X., Yong, K. M. A., Sang, J., Spence, J. R., Gumucio, D. L. and Fu, J. Self-organized amniogenesis by human pluripotent stem cells in a biomimetic implantation-like niche. Nature Mater.16, 419-425 (2017).
Sasaki, K., Nakamura, T., Okamoto, I., Yabuta, Y., Iwatani, C., Tsuchiya, H., Seita, Y., Nakamura, S., Shiraki, N., Takakuwa, T., Yamamoto, T. and Saitou, M. The germ cell fate of cynomolgus monkeys is specified in the nascent amnion. Dev. Cell39, 169-185 (2016).
Harrison, S. E., Sozen, B., Christodoulou, N., Kyprianou, C. and Zernicka-Goetz, M. Assembly of embryonic and extraembryonic stem cells to mimic embryogenesis in vitro. Science 10.1126/science.aal1810 (2017).
Taniguchi, K., Shao, Y., Townshend, R. F., Cortez, C. L., Harris, C. E., Meshinchi, S., Kalantry, S., Fu, J., O’Shea, K. S. and Gumucio, D. L. An apicosome initiates self-organizing morphogenesis of human pluripotent stem cells. J. Cell Biol.216, 3981-3990 (2017).
Hsu, P. D., Lander, E. S. and Zhang, F. Development and applications of CRISPR-Cas9 for genome engineering. Cell157, 1262-1278 (2014).
The Buckley lab at the department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (PDN), University of Cambridge is recruiting a postdoctoral research associate or research assistant. The lab uses cutting edge optogenetic and live confocal imaging approaches within the whole zebrafish neural tube to manipulate the polarity of single cells (Buckley et al., 2016, PMID: 26766447). In combination with CRISPR-mediated functional knock down experiments, we are directly testing the role of cell polarity in building epithelial integrity during organ development and in breaking it during developmental processes such as EMT and diseases such as carcinoma. The department of PDN is home to world-leading research in development, neuroscience, zebrafish live imaging and optogenetics. It hosts the Cambridge Advanced Imaging Centre (CAIC), which provides cutting edge microscopy systems, bespoke development of new imaging equipment and expert support.
We are seeking an enthusiastic and proactive candidate to join the team at the beginning of this exciting research. There are two main projects with which the successful candidate could be involved, depending on their interests and expertise. The first is to use optogenetics and tissue-specific CRISPR to determine how cell polarity and cell division are linked during epithelial establishment (we previously discovered a novel mechanism of cell polarisation that occurs independently to cell division: Buckley et al., PMCID: PMC3545300). We will do this within zebrafish embryos and, in partnership with our collaborators, in mammalian stem cell culture systems. The second project is to test the role of polarity dysregulation in tissue disruption. We will do this by optogenetically manipulating polarity-linked signalling pathways (such as the PI3K pathway) in the already established zebrafish neural tube epithelium. We will use 4D imaging to assess the cellular consequences of these manipulations and will model how signalling dynamics are propagated through the tissue in real time.
The successful candidate should have or be near completion of a PhD (or equivalent) in a relevant field and have a competitive history of research achievements. We are interested both in candidates with a background in developmental cell biology and those coming from a more biophysical background. Experience in molecular biology and genetics is essential and ideally the candidate should have experience in CRISPR technology. Candidates must also have a good understanding of data analysis and bioinformatics. Experience in advanced imaging and analysis would be a great advantage, as would specific knowledge of zebrafish genetics. Knowledge and interest in cell polarity and epithelial development, biochemical signalling pathways and optogenetic techniques would be desirable.
Although this is a full-time post, part-time working i.e. 80% of full-time over 4 days may be possible.
Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available for 3 years in the first instance.
Last summer I had the great pleasure and privilege to attend the six-week, summer Embryology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in the beautiful town of Woods Hole, MA. The course is legendary, as having been established in 1893, it has spit out some of the most prominent scientists in the field of developmental biology. After always finding an excuse not to apply (just starting my PhD, too much work in my second year, writing up in my third year) I finally decided to apply last year and was incredibly fortunate to get in. To those reading this and wondering themselves whether to apply for the 2018 call (http://www.mbl.edu/education/courses/embryology/) – I can promise that this course will change your life*.
During those six weeks I learned a vast amount of useful and important things but the single, most important thing I got out of it was getting rid of fear.
Firstly, the fear of asking questions. This one is associated with the fear of appearing stupid in front of colleagues and especially senior scientists. Feeling embarrassed to admit you didn’t understand something during a lecture, or asking to clarify some of the methodology that you didn’t follow. Sounds familiar? At the Embryology course we had some of the most successful developmental biologists come and lecture about their respective fields of specialization. After the lectures came the famous sweat box – a discussion session after the lecture where only students are supposed to ask questions to the speaker. Any question you desire, and I mean any – about the lecture, their career, thoughts about a controversial subject. It was during those sessions that we all discovered that we had the same questions about parts of the lectures, and they were perfectly valid, that asking even the strangest or seemingly obvious questions often sparked incredibly interesting discussions. After one session, every student has asked questions and the discussions in the following weeks were some of the most memorable and stimulating I have been part of.
Secondly, the fear of trying something new. During a PhD or even a Postdoctoral position, we often have a limited amount of time, and of course a limited amount of funding, which often drives us to stick to ‘safe’ experiments and experimental models. Using well-established techniques, to study grant-awarding, often medical questions, in standard animal models. At the course, you are given the unprecedented freedom and resources to try almost anything you can think of. You are given the animal of the day (be it model organisms like mouse or drosophila, or wonderful weirdos like ctenophores and tardigrades) and are encouraged to come up with any experiment you are interested in. The PIs and their assistants are incredibly supportive and excited about even the craziest of ideas and just like that, you have tried so many new techniques on so many organisms that your head spins right off your neck.
Author in the lab at 2 am, fittingly failing at the chicken embryo NODE graft.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the fear of failure. Never in my life have I failed so often in such a short amount of time as at the Embryology course. Every day is filled with failure – you are up until 2 am in the morning meticulously injecting your sea star embryos, lovingly placing them in the incubator overnight and waking the next morning only to find that they are all dead, because you’ve put them to incubate in the wrong temperature. That moment when you excitedly run to check on your amazing Spemann organizer graft and find that the thing you thought was developing into a beautiful two-headed froglet is merely a mashed-up ball of cells, which is miraculously still alive and twitching, though will definitely not win you that special can of Massachusetts lager. You fail so often that you finally realize that it is those failures that you learn from the most and after you try, and try, and try, and try again – you finally witness something that worked, and it is beautiful.
*Or at the very least make you a better scientist.
BSDB Autumn Meetings can be organised by members. So do not hesitate to approach meetings@bsdb.org if you have any ideas. However, note that we are booked for meetings through to 2021 (seeBSDB meetings webpage). So think ahead, let us know, and we will help you with the organisation.
Read here a report about the Autumn Meeting 2017, jointly organised by the BSDB together with the Swedish, Finish, Norwegian and Danish Societies of Developmental Biology, which took place 25-27 October 2017 in the Aula Medica of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Joint BSDB/Nordic Conference on Developmental Biology and Regeneration
The Joint BSDB/Nordic Conference on Developmental Biology ad Regeneration was first proposed to SWEDBO and FSDB in December 2014, so had been in planning for almost three years. It was organised by Megan Davey (BSDB), Joe Rainger (Univ. Edinburgh), Elke Ober and Palle Serup (Denmark), Satu Kuure (FSDB), Luiza Ghila and Helge Raeder (Norway), Christos Samakovlis, Andreas Simon and Sara Wilson (SWEDBO). Particular thanks go to Sara Wilson, Andreas Simon and their ground support, Paulina Pettersson, for their hard work and organisation, and to Joe Rainger who drove the sponsorship. Thanks also to the BSDB members who travelled to Sweden for the meeting and Thomas Jessell who could be persuaded to travel all the way from New York for his plenary session. I strongly feel that the meeting was an outstanding success
Attendance – With volunteers and sponsor attendees we had a total of 212 attendants, of which 194 were registered scientific attendees, 15 were invited speakers, and 22 were BSDB members (8 being supported by travel grants). Other than UK attendees, Sweden (understandably) had the most attendees (94) but there was also a strong showing from Denmark, Finland and China. We additionally had attendees from Austria, Ireland, Brazil, Norway, Spain, Czech Republic and USA.
Program – We aimed to have a general scientific program covering all aspects of Developmental Biology in plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. With Tom Jessell (Columbia University, NY. USA) as our EMBO-sponsored plenary, there was a strong emphasis on nervous system development (Session 1 -13 talks), which included development of motor circuits, visual circuits, enteric nervous system, regeneration, neural crest, evolution and single cell transcriptomics. Highlights of this session were Tom’s superb talk who explained how they pick apart the identity and function of interneurons, and the presentation by Igor Adameyko (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) about single cell transcriptomics in neural crest development. Session 2 (15 talks) was on organogenesis & morphogenesis and covered mathematical modelling of development, mammalian blastocyst, pancreas, heart and kidney development, and vertebrate genetics. A particular highlight was Leif Andersson’s (Uppsala University, Sweden) talk who illustrated wonderfully how structural genomic changes contribute to dramatic phenotypic evolution in birds, with particular emphasis on behaviour and plumages. Session 3 (8 talks) was on stem cells & regeneration which included a huge variety of science, including the role of forces in developing stem cell niches, regeneration in salamanders, skeletal muscle, tissue repair and regeneration and organisation in plants. A highlight was Ari Pekka Mahonen’s presentation who presented his work identifying a core regulatory network within the cambial stem cell niche in Arabidopsis.
We also had two 3hr-long poster sessions with drinks and nibbles. The buzz was really fantastic, attendance was superb and, in fact, we had to ask people to leave at the end of both evenings, so security could close the building.
Prizes – The Swedish society for developmental biology (SWEDBO) gave out three €100 travel grants as poster prizes to Yiqiao Wang (Karolinska Institute, Sweden), Mariane Teradup Pedersen (Univ. Copenhagen, Denmark) and Li Hi (Stockholm University, Sweden). A prize of €200 donated by Scanbur, was awarded to Arvydas Dapnkunas (University of Helsinki, Finland) for his work developing a 3D culture system to explore factors governing the organisation and self-renewal of nephron progenitors. Finally, the BSDB organised the Dennis Summerbell Award Lecture which was given by Helen Weavers on the inflammatory response to tissue damage in Drosophila (see details here).
L-R: Poster prize winners Yiqiao Wang, Li Hi, and Arvydas Dapkunas, with organiser Joe Rainger
Venue – What can I say … the Aula Medica at the Karolinska Institute was amazing! Beautiful, beautiful building! Amazing staff! Best AV I’ve experienced ever! Great areas for posters and sponsors! Super comfy chairs! A green room! With showers (just in case…??)! And the best of it all: we could get it at a good price since it was organised internally through the Karolinska Institute.
Sponsorship – Joe Rainger led on the recruitment of sponsors, including designing the different sponsorship rates, contacting sponsors and assisting them on-site, and establishing communication between sponsors, Aula Medica team and conference attendees. The effort the sponsors themselves put in was great. For example, Nikon and Zeiss bought microscopes including a spinning disk confocal from Nikon. Everyone came away really happy, and Aula Medica was very impressed, as were the sponsors.
The team of B. Chazaud at Institut NeuroMyoGene at the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, CNRS, INSERM, at Lyon, is seeking to fill 2 postdoctoral research scientist positions in the area of skeletal muscle regeneration and homeostasis. One of the main goals of the Chazaud laboratory research programs is to understand the role of the close environment on muscle stem cell fate in normal regenerating skeletal muscle as well as during muscle diseases.
Requirements
PhD (or near PhD completion) in biological or biomedical sciences or post-doc scientists with no more than 2/3 years post-doc experience.
Scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at scientific conferences. Published evidence of aptitude for high quality research is essential.
A strong background in the following fields:
Profile 1 – exploration of the role of extracellular matrix in skeletal muscle biology (PI: Dr. B Chazaud). The candidate must have an experience working in the biology and biochemistry of extracellular matrix. A background in skeletal muscle biology is a plus, but not mandatory.
Profile 2 – exploration of the role of myofiber contraction on skeletal muscle environment (PI: Dr. R Mounier). The candidate must have an experience working in the biology and physiology of skeletal muscle, with a reference to in vitro/ex vivo muscle cell contraction.
Terms and conditions
The post-doc researchers will conduct and nurture the research programs in close connection with the PI, until the submission of high-quality articles. Positions are open from the beginning of 2018. Salaries are available for 3 years, renewed every year according to progress, however the post-doc researchers are expected to be competitive and to be able to obtain their own independent financing.
Environment
B Chazaud team is part of Institut NeuroMyoGene, a new Institute dedicated to basic and translational research in the neuromuscular field that hosts 14 research teams encompassing 200 people and that is connected to numerous facilities (molecular biology, imaging, cell biology, physiology), guaranteeing a high quality and dynamic scientific environment.
As the second biggest town in France, Lyon hosts 60 laboratories (4500 people) in the area of Life and Health Sciences. Lyon is ideally located between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea. Lyon is renowned for its quality of life including outdoor leisure closely the big city, and of course, its gastronomy and wines.
How to apply?
Please send to the PI: 1) a cover letter highlighting research interests, goals and previous scientific contributions; 2) a CV listing education, publications, meeting presentations and any other skills of interest; 3) at least 2 reference contacts.
The Company of Biologists (biologists.com) is launching a new preprint highlighting service for the biological community. We are looking for the right person to help us build and evolve this new service.
Joining an experienced and successful publishing team, this is an exciting opportunity for an enthusiastic and motivated team builder to take a step into publishing. Offered initially as a three-year appointment, we expect the role to evolve in new and interesting ways.
Applicants will have relevant research experience, ideally a PhD in a field relevant to one or more of the Company’s journals. They should have a good understanding of the needs of scientists and the growing impact of preprints as well as a demonstrated interest in science communication and experience with social media.
Core responsibilities include:
• building and maintaining a team of community contributors
• developing a good content strategy around preprint selection and commenting
• smooth running of the preprint highlighting service
• growing an active social media presence
• identifying opportunities that allow us to evolve this community service
Essential requirements for the job are a broad understanding of science and the scientific community, excellent communication and team-building skills, plus confidence in networking and managing relationships. The successful candidate will have a diplomatic style, enthusiasm, judgement and integrity. This position has an attractive salary and benefits and represents a unique career opportunity within a highly successful not-for-profit publisher. The role is based in our attractive modern offices on the outskirts of Cambridge, UK.
The Company of Biologists (biologists.com) exists to support biologists and inspire advances in biology. At the heart of what we do are our five specialist journals – Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open – two of them fully open access. All are edited by expert researchers in the field, and all articles are subjected to rigorous peer review. We take great pride in the experience of our editorial team and the quality of the work we publish. We believe that the profits from publishing the hard work of biologists should support scientific discovery and help develop future scientists. Our grants help support societies, meetings and individuals. Our workshops and meetings give the opportunity to network and collaborate.
To apply, please send your CV by email to recruitment@biologists.com along with a covering letter that states your current salary, summarises your relevant experience and explains why you are enthusiastic about this opportunity. You must be able to demonstrate your entitlement to work in the UK.
Applications should be made as soon as possible and by 8th January 2018. Late applications may be considered.
Following a generous donation, the BSDB has instituted the Dennis Summerbell Lecture, to be delivered at its annual Autumn Meeting by a junior researcher at either PhD or Post-doctoral level. The 2017 lecture awardee was Helen Weavers (School of Biochemistry, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, University of Bristol) was with her submitted abstract “Understanding the inflammatory response to tissue damage in Drosophila: a complex interplay of pro-inflammatory attractant signals, developmental priming and tissue cyto-protection”. Her award lecture was presented at the Autumn Meeting 2017, jointly organised by the BSDB together with the Swedish, Finish, Norwegian and Danish Societies of Developmental Biology, 25-27 October 2017 in Stockholm.
Helen’s work so far
After completing her PhD studies investigating Drosophila nephrogenesis in Helen Skaer’s lab in Cambridge, Helen moved to Bristol in 2013 to take up a 5 year, MRC-funded post-doc position between Paul Martin’s and Will Wood’s labs. Her first publication from this work (Weavers et al., 2016, Cell 165, 1658ff.), showed that Drosophila macrophages (haemocytes), must first be “primed” by engulfing at least one dead cell, before they are responsive to wound attractants. These findings are important because the majority of human pathologies are a consequence of too little or too much inflammation. What really excited the judges of the Denis Summberbell Lecture award was the work which had led to her most recent paper entitled “Systems Analysis of the Dynamic Inflammatory Response to Tissue Damage Reveals Spatiotemporal Properties of the Wound Attractant Gradient” (Weavers et al., 2016, Curr Biol 26, 1974ff.). This was a true multidisciplinary study, using a combined approach of mathematics and biology to analyse macrophage behaviours in response to tissue damage. Although the identity of the wound attractant signal/s are still not clear, this study was able to determine several of the characteristics of the attractant(s). Building on this strong platform of work, Helen is currently developing her own research towards understanding tissue protection/resilience in Drosophila and man, and this was an exciting novel element of her award lecture. In her talk, she described in a stunningly visual and understandable way how successful tissue repair relies not only on the host’s ability to mount an effective inflammatory response, but also on its ability to limit it. Her talk was a fabulous highlight and a shining example of high quality research by members of the BSDB.
Lecture abstract:
Understanding the inflammatory response to tissue damage in Drosophila: a complex interplay of pro-inflammatory attractant signals, developmental priming and tissue cyto-protection
Helen Weavers, Bristol, UK
An effective inflammatory response is pivotal to fight infection, clear debris and orchestrate the repair of injured tissues; however, inflammation must be tightly regulated since many human disease pathologies are a consequence of inflammation gone awry. Using a genetically tractable Drosophila model, I use precise genetic manipulation, live imaging and computational modelling to dissect the mechanisms that activate the inflammatory response to tissue damage and those that simultaneously protect the regenerating tissue from immunopathology. Upon tissue damage, immune cells (particularly neutrophils and macrophages) are recruited into the damaged area by damage signals (danger-associated molecular patterns, DAMPs) released from the injured tissue. In collaboration with computational biologists, we employ a sophisticated Bayesian statistical approach to uncover novel details of the pro-inflammatory wound attractants, by analysing the spatio-temporal behaviour of Drosophila immune cells as they respond to wounds. We show that the wound attractant is released by wound edge cells and spreads slowly through the tissue, at rates far slower than small molecule DAMPs such as ATP and H2O2. Strikingly, we also find that immune cells must be developmentally ‘primed’ by uptake of apoptotic corpses before they can respond to these damage attractant signals. Such corpse-induced priming is an example of “innate immune memory” and may serve to amplify the inflammatory response in situations involving excessive cell death – and otherwise limit an overzealous and damaging immune response. Indeed, whilst inflammation is clearly beneficial, toxic molecules (e.g. reactive oxygen species, ROS) generated by immune cells to fight infection, can also cause significant bystander damage to host tissue and delay repair – and may underpin chronic wound-healing pathologies in the clinic. To counter this, I find that wounded Drosophila tissue employs a complex network of cyto-protective pathways that promote tissue ‘resilience’, which both protect against ROS-induced damage and stimulate damage repair. Successful tissue repair, therefore, not only relies on the host’s ability to mount an effective inflammatory response, but also its ability to finely tune it and limit associated immunopathology.</div?
Our latest monthly trawl for developmental biology (and other cool) preprints. Let us know if we missed anything.
In their end of year round up, Science magazine picked ‘Biology preprints take off’ as a runner up 2018 Breakthrough of the Year, and ran a quote from Ron Vale –
“It’s a major cultural change in communication.”
In compiling this list over 2017 (which month by month gets longer and longer), it’s been exciting to witness the buzz around preprints grow and watch this cultural change take place.
As for December, two organs seem to predominate – brains and kidneys! Also plenty of beautiful evo-devo and cell biology work, a good chunk of modelling, and the Drosophilists dream –a machine that collects your virgins for you!
The preprints were hosted on bioRxiv, PeerJ, andarXiv. Use these links to get to the section you want:
Cardiac directed differentiation using small molecule Wnt modulation at single-cell resolution. Clayton Friedman, Quan Nguyen, Samuel Lukowski, Abbigail Helfer, Han Chiu, Holly Voges, Shengbao Suo, Jing-Dong Han, Pierre Osteil, Guangdun Peng, Naihe Jing, Greg Ballie, Anne Senabouth, Angelika Christ, Timothy Bruxner, Charles Murry, Emily Wong, Jun Ding, Yuliang Wang, James Hudson, Ziv Bar-Joseph, Patrick Tam, Joseph Powell, Nathan Palpant
Human-specific NOTCH-like genes in a region linked to neurodevelopmental disorders affect cortical neurogenesis. Ian T Fiddes, Gerrald A Lodewijk, Meghan M Mooring, Colleen M Bosworth, Adam D Ewing, Gary L Mantalas, Adam M Novak, Anouk van den Bout, Alex Bishara, Jimi L Rosenkrantz, Ryan Lorig-Roach, Andrew R Field, Maximillian Haeussler, Lotte Russo, Aparna Bhaduri, Tomasz J Nowakowski, Alex A Pollen, Max L Dougherty, Xander Nuttle, Marie-Claude Addor, Simon Zwolinski, Sol Katzman, Arnold Kreigstein, Evan E Eichler, Sofie R Salama, Frank MJ Jacobs, David Haussler
Shared and distinct transcriptomic cell types across neocortical areas. Bosiljka Tasic, Zizhen Yao, Kimberly A Smith, Lucas Graybuck, Thuc Nghi Nguyen, Darren Bertagnolli, Jeff Goldy, Emma Garren, Michael N Economo, Sarada Viswanathan, Osnat Penn, Trygve Bakken, Vilas Menon, Jeremy A Miller, Olivia Fong, Karla E Hirokawa, Kanan Lathia, Christine Rimorin, Michael Tieu, Rachael Larsen, Tamara Casper, Eliza Barkan, Matthew Kroll, Seana Parry, Nadiya V Shapovalova, Daniel Hirchstein, Julie Pendergraft, Tae Kyung Kim, Aaron Szafer, Nick Dee, Peter Groblewski, Ian Wickersham, Ali Cetin, Julie A Harris, Boaz P Levi, Susan M Sunkin, Linda Madisen, Tanya L Daigle, Loren Looger, Amy Bernard, John Phillips, Ed Lein, Michael Hawrylycz, Karel Svoboda, Allan R Jones, Christof Koch, Hongkui Zeng
A single-cell catalogue of regulatory states in the ageing Drosophila brain. Kristofer Davie, Jasper Janssens, Duygu Koldere, Uli Pech, Sara Aibar, Maxime De Waegeneer, Samira Makhzami, Valerie Christiaens, Carmen Bravo Gonzalez-Blas, Gert Hulselmans, Katina Spanier, Thomas Moerman, Bram Vanspauwen, Jeroen Lammertyn, Bernard Thienpont, Sha Liu, Patrik Verstreken, Stein Aerts
Genome Architecture Leads a Bifurcation in Cell Identity. Sijia Liu, Haiming Chen, Scott Ronquist, Laura Seaman, Nicholas Ceglia, Walter Meixner, Lindsey A. Muir, Pin-Yu Chen, Gerald Higgins, Pierre Baldi, Steve Smale, Alfred Hero, Indika Rajapakse
Distinct SoxB1 networks are required for naïve and primed pluripotency. Andrea Corsinotti, Frederick CK Wong, Tulin Tatar, Iwona Szczerbinska, Florian Halbritter, Douglas Colby, Sabine Gogolok, Raphael Pantier, Kirsten Liggat, Elham S Mirfazeli, Elisa Hall-Ponsele, Nicholas Mullin, Valerie Wilson, Ian Chambers
Whole Genomes Define Concordance of Matched Primary, Xenograft, and Organoid Models of Pancreas Cancer. Deena M.A. Gendoo, Robert E. Denroche, Amy Zhang, Nikolina Radulovich, Gun Ho Jang, Mathieu Lemire, Sandra Fischer, Dianne Chadwick, Ilinca M. Lungu, Emin Ibrahimov, Ping-Jiang Cao, Lincoln D. Stein, Julie M. Wilson, John M.S. Bartlett, Ming-Sound Tsao, Neesha Dhani, David Hedley, Steven Gallinger, Benjamin Haibe-Kains
Human iPSC-derived RPE and retinal organoids reveal impaired alternative splicing of genes involved in pre-mRNA splicing in PRPF31 autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa. Adriana Buskin, Lili Zhu, Valeria Chichagova, Basudha Basu, Sina Mozaffari-Jovin, David Dolan, Alastair Droop, Joseph Collin, Revital Bronstein, Sudeep Mehrotra, Michael Farkas, Gerrit Hilgen, Kathryn White, Dean Hallam, Katarzyna Bialas, Git Chung, Carla Mellough, Yuchun Ding, Natalio Krasnogor, Stefan Przyborski, Jumana Al-Aama, Sameer Alharthi, Yaobo Xu, Gabrielle Wheway, Katarzyna Szymanska, Martin McKibbin, Chris F Inglehearn, David J Elliott, Susan Lindsay, Robin R Ali, David H Steel, Lyle Armstrong, Evelyne Sernagor, Eric Pierce, Reinhard Luehrmann, Sushma-Nagaraja Grellscheid, Colin A Johnson, Majlinda Lako
HNF1A is a Novel Oncogene and Central Regulator of Pancreatic Cancer Stem Cells. Ethan Abel, Masashi Goto, Brian Magnuson, Saji Abraham, Nikita Ramanathan, Emily Hotaling, Anthony A. Alaniz, Chandan Kumar-Sinha, Michele L. Dziubinski, Sumithra Urs, Lidong Wang, Jiaqi Shi, Meghna Waghray, Mats Ljungman, Howard C Crawford, Diane M. Simeone
Evolutionary Origin of the Mammalian Hematopoietic System Found in a Colonial Chordate. Benyamin Rosental, Mark A. Kowarsky, Jun Seita, Daniel M. Corey, Katherine J. Ishizuka, Karla J. Palmeri, Shih-Yu Chen, Rahul Sinha, Jennifer Okamoto, Gary Mantalas, Lucia Manni, Tal Raveh, D. Nathaniel Clarke, Aaron M. Newman, Norma F. Neff, Garry P. Nolan, Stephen R. Quake, Irving L. Weissman, Ayelet Voskoboynik
Firefly genomes illuminate the origin and evolution of bioluminescence. Timothy R Fallon, Sarah E Lower, Ching-Ho Chang, Manabu Bessho-Uehara, Gavin J Martin, Adam J Bewick, Megan Behringer, Humberto J Debat, Isaac Wong, John C Day, Anton Suvorov, Christian J Silva, David W Hall, Robert J. Schmitz, David R Nelson, Sara Lewis, Shuji Shigenobu, Seth M Bybee, Amanda M Larracuente, Yuichi Oba, Jing-Ke Weng
Improved Aedes aegypti mosquito reference genome assembly enables biological discovery and vector control. Benjamin J Matthews, Olga Dudchenko, Sarah Kingan, Sergey Koren, Igor Antoshechkin, Jacob E Crawford, William J Glassford, Margaret Herre, Seth N Redmond, Noah H Rose, Gareth D Weedall, Yang Wu, Sanjit S Batra, Carlos A Brito-Sierra, Steven D Buckingham, Corey L Campbell, Saki Chan, Eric Cox, Benjamin R Evans, Thanyalak Fansiri, Igor Filipovic, Albin Fontaine, Andrea Gloria-Soria, Richard Hall, Vinita S Joardar, Andrew K Jones, Raissa G G Kay, Vamsi Kodali, Joyce Lee, Gareth J Lycett, Sara N Mitchell, Jill Muehling, Michael R Murphy, Arina Omer, Frederick A Partridge, Paul Peluso, Aviva Presser Aiden, Vidya Ramasamy, Gordana Rasic, Sourav Roy, Karla Saavedra-Rodriguez, Shruti Sharan, Atashi Sharma, Melissa Smith, Joe Turner, Allison M Weakley, Zhilei Zhao, Omar S Akbari, William C Black IV, Han Cao, Alistair C Darby, Catherine Hill, J. Spencer Johnston, Terence D Murphy, Alexander S Raikhel, David B Sattelle, Igor V Sharakhov, Bradley J White, Li Zhao, Erez Lieberman Aiden, Richard S Mann, Louis Lambrechts, Jeffrey R Powell, Maria V Sharakhova, Zhijian Tu, Hugh M Robertson, Carolyn S McBride, Alex R Hastie, Jonas Korlach, Daniel E Neafsey, Adam M Phillippy, Leslie B Vosshall
ZMYND10 functions in a chaperone relay during axonemal dynein assembly. Girish R Mali, Patricia Yeyati, Seiya Mizuno, Margaret A Keighren, Petra zur Lage, Amaya Garcia-Munoz, Atsuko Shimada, Hiroyuki Takeda, Frank Edlich, Satoru Takahashi, Alex von Kriegsheim, Andrew Jarman, Pleasantine Mill
Quantitative mass imaging of single molecules in solution. Gavin Young, Nikolas Hundt, Daniel Cole, Adam Fineberg, Joanna Andrecka, Andrew Tyler, Anna Olerinyova, Ayla Ansari, Erik G Marklund, Miranda P Collier, Shane A Chandler, Olga Tkachenko, Joel Allen, Max Crispin, Neil Billington, Yasuharu Takagi, James R Sellers, Cedric Eichmann, Philip Selenko, Lukas Frey, Roland Riek, Martin R Galpin, Weston B Struwe, Justin L P Benesch, Philipp Kukura
Equivalent high-resolution identification of neuronal cell types with single-nucleus and single-cell RNA-sequencing. Trygve E Bakken, Rebecca D Hodge, Jeremy M Miller, Zizhen Yao, Thuc N Nguyen, Brian Aevermann, Eliza Barkan, Darren Bertagnolli, Tamara Casper, Nick Dee, Emma Garren, Jeff Goldy, Lucas T Gray, Matthew Kroll, Roger S Lasken, Kanan Lathia, Sheana Parry, Christine Rimorin, Richard H Scheuermann, Nicholas J Schork, Soraya I Shehata, Michael Tieu, Kimberly A Smith, Hongkui Zeng, Ed S Lein, Bosiljka Tasic
Resolving the Full Spectrum of Human Genome Variation using Linked-Reads. Patrick Marks, Sarah Garcia, Alvaro Martinez Barrio, Kamila Belhocine, Jorge Bernate, Rajiv Bharadwaj, Keith Bjornson, Claudia Catalanotti, Josh Delaney, Adrian Fehr, Brendan Galvin, Haynes Heaton, Jill Herschleb, Christopher Hindson, Esty Holt, Cassandra B. Jabara, Susanna Jett, Nikka Keivanfar, Sofia Kyriazopoulou-Panagiotopoulou, Monkol Lek, Bill Lin, Adam Lowe, Shazia Mahamdallie, Shamoni Maheshwari, Tony Makarewicz, Jamie Marshall, Francesca Meschi, Chris O’keefe, Heather Ordonez, Pranav Patel, Andrew Price, Ariel Royall, Elise Ruark, Sheila Seal, Michael Schnall-Levin, Preyas Shah, Stephen Williams, Indira Wu, Andrew Wei Xu, Nazneen Rahman, Daniel MacArthur, Deanna M. Church
statement!). But I’m writing this post because I’m intrigued to know if my reservations chime with other readers, and to find out what other people think about this: does it really make sense to make the case for developmental biology as ‘the stem cell of biological disciplines’?
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The Buckley lab at the department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience (PDN), University of Cambridge is recruiting a postdoctoral research associate or research assistant. The lab uses cutting edge optogenetic and live confocal imaging approaches within the whole zebrafish neural tube to manipulate the polarity of single cells (Buckley et al., 2016, PMID: 26766447). In combination with CRISPR-mediated functional knock down experiments, we are directly testing the role of cell polarity in building epithelial integrity during organ development and in breaking it during developmental processes such as EMT and diseases such as carcinoma. The department of PDN is home to world-leading research in development, neuroscience, zebrafish live imaging and optogenetics. It hosts the Cambridge Advanced Imaging Centre (CAIC), which provides cutting edge microscopy systems, bespoke development of new imaging equipment and expert support.
Program – We aimed to have a general scientific program covering all aspects of Developmental Biology in plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. With Tom Jessell (Columbia University, NY. USA) as our EMBO-sponsored plenary, there was a strong emphasis on nervous system development (Session 1 -13 talks), which included development of motor circuits, visual circuits, enteric nervous system, regeneration, neural crest, evolution and single cell transcriptomics. Highlights of this session were Tom’s superb talk who explained how they pick apart the identity and function of interneurons, and the presentation by Igor Adameyko (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) about single cell transcriptomics in neural crest development. Session 2 (15 talks) was on organogenesis & morphogenesis and covered mathematical modelling of development, mammalian blastocyst, pancreas, heart and kidney development, and vertebrate genetics. A particular highlight was Leif Andersson’s (Uppsala University, Sweden) talk who illustrated wonderfully how structural genomic changes contribute to dramatic phenotypic evolution in birds, with particular emphasis on behaviour and plumages. Session 3 (8 talks) was on stem cells & regeneration which included a huge variety of science, including the role of forces in developing stem cell niches, regeneration in salamanders, skeletal muscle, tissue repair and regeneration and organisation in plants. A highlight was Ari Pekka Mahonen’s presentation who presented his work identifying a core regulatory network within the cambial stem cell niche in Arabidopsis.
After completing her PhD studies investigating Drosophila nephrogenesis in Helen Skaer’s lab in Cambridge, Helen moved to Bristol in 2013 to take up a 5 year, MRC-funded post-doc position between Paul Martin’s and Will Wood’s labs. Her first publication from this work (
