Monash University is seeking an outstanding candidate to manage and lead the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology within the Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences. The Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology is one of six departments of the School of Biomedical Sciences and a leader within its discipline. Areas of research expertise include renal and lung biology, epithelial and reproductive biology, inflammation, embryology, cancer, stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.

The successful candidate will capitalise and build on existing educational and research strengths to create a high-performing team of academics and professional staff who not only provide outstanding educational opportunities to the students in the school but also, through membership of the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute, contribute to the research strategy and output of the institute.

To be successful in this role you will have a proven track record of individual research excellence and evidence of leadership through building and developing capability in an academic or research environment.

Applications close 30th September, 2016.

Details can be found at:

http://careersmanager.pageuppeople.com/513/cw/en/job/551205/professor-and-head-of-department-of-anatomy-and-developmental-biology

A position description can be found at:

aug-pd-professor-and-head-of-department-of-anatomy-and-developmental-biology-551205-1

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The Varshney lab is recruiting a highly motivated, passionate and independent individual with excellent interpersonal skills to play a key role in advancing the mission of the lab.

We are focused on tackling the huge challenge of systematically validating the flood of human candidate disease genes identified in various genome- wide association (GWAS) and whole-exome sequencing studies by developing disease models in zebrafish.

The successful applicant will use zebrafish and the emerging genomic technologies to understand the disease pathology of human non-syndromic hearing loss. Our research interests span multiple disciplines: genetics, genomics, molecular biology, and developmental biology.

A recent doctorate in Biological Sciences or related field with experience in Molecular Biology, Cell & Developmental Biology, and Genetics is required. Experience with zebrafish is desirable, but not essential.

Please send a curriculum vitae and summary of research interests to:

Gaurav Varshney, Ph.D.,

Assistant Member,

Functional & Chemical Genomics Program,

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

Email: Gaurav-Varshney AT omrf.org

The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) is an independent, not-for-profit, biomedical research institute adjacent to the campus of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) in Oklahoma City. OMRF investigators enjoy close scientific interactions with OUHSC faculty and participate in OUHSC graduate programs. OMRF has been selected as one of the best research institutions for post-docs from 2011 to 2013 in the USA by The Scientist journal. Additional information about OMRF can be found at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation web site: http://omrf.org

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Department/Location: Wellcome Trust – Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge

Salary: £28,982-£37,768

Reference: PS10005

Closing date: 04 October 2016

Post-doctoral fellow: healthy ageing of human haematopoietic stem cells.

Fixed-term: The funds for this post are available until 31 October 2019 in the first instance.

The Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute is an international centre of excellence for stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Scientists in the Institute collaborate to advance our knowledge of various stem cell types and to perform pioneering work in translational research areas, providing the foundation for new medical treatments. The Institute currently comprises 29 research groups based across 6 sites in Cambridge. In 2018 all researchers will move to a new building on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Applications are invited for a research associate to join Dr Laurenti’s group. We combine state-of-the-art experimental and computational methods to study the unique biological and molecular properties of human Haematopoietic Stem Cells (HSCs).

The post holder will join a new multidisciplinary project funded by the BBSRC. This collaboration between Dr Laurenti and Prof. Göttgens laboratories has as principal aim the investigation of the functional and molecular heterogeneity of HSCs throughout a human lifetime, with a particular focus on the effects of healthy ageing. The project will combine single cell, transcriptomics, epigenomics, flow cytometry, single cell functional assays in vitro and in vivo.

The successful candidate is expected to creatively and independently carry out their own research project, while collaborating on a regular basis with a team of experimentalists and computational biologists. They will also effectively communicate their work in writing and oral presentations at internal meetings and international conferences.

Candidates should hold a PhD in a relevant field. In particular, they will have a strong background either in stem cell biology, haematology, immunology or ageing. Extensive experience with flow cytometry, mouse models and tissue culture is required. The candidate should also possess molecular biology skills. Additional expertise with high-throughput sequencing data and the R programming language would be desirable. Finally, they will have demonstrated scientific achievement with an excellent publication record.

The start date is flexible but can be as early as November 2016.

Once an offer of employment has been accepted, the successful candidate will be required to undergo a health assessment and a security check.

To apply online for this vacancy and to view further information about the role, please visit: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/11327. This will take you to the role on the University’s Job Opportunities pages. There you will need to click on the ‘Apply online’ button and register an account with the University’s Web Recruitment System (if you have not already) and log in before completing the online application form.

The closing date for all applications is the Tuesday 04 October 2016.

Informal enquiries are also welcome via email to: jobs@stemcells.cam.ac.uk.

Interviews will be held 13-14 October 2016.

Please quote reference PS10005 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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Here we highlight some developmental biology related content from other journals published by The Company of Biologists.

Meritxell Huch, Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, was interviewed as a Cell Scientist to Watch (she’s certainly one for developmental biologists to watch too!).

The Tanentzapf lab assayed the effects of outside-in integrin activation in the Drosophila embryo, and found that this form of activation is crucial for developmental transitions.

Kang-Yell Choi and colleagues found that retinoic acid stabilisation of HRas is required for neuronal differentiation during brain development

The Gönczy lab identified Aurora-A kinases as crucial regulators of spindle positioning from worms to humans.

Paul Lasko and colleagues identified the centrosomal protein Bsg25 as a crucial regulator of mitosis and embryonic development.

Pamela Yao and colleagues investigated a pool of Sonic Hedgehog contained in extracellular vesicles around neurons.

Takashi Yamamoto and colleagues presented a super-ovulation method paired with genome engineering in mice.

Judith West-Mays and colleagues showed that loss of the transcription factor AP-2β in neural crest cells leads to multiple eye defects, providing a model for early-onset glaucoma

Using patient-derived stem cells, Mylène Hervé and El Chérif Ibrahim implicated miRNAs and the splicing factor NOVA-1 in familial dysautonomia

Kathryn Knight reported from ‘Improving Experimental Approaches in Animal Biology: Implementing the 3Rs’, a conference held in June that showcased the various ways researchers can change their habits to ensure  the ethical use of animals in research.

Glen Watson and colleagues found that repair of adult murine hair cells – which is normally only minimal –  is enhanced by sea anemone repair proteins.

Adriana Briscoe and colleagues identified an expanded number of photoreceptor classes and sexual dimorphism in their expression in a species of nymphalid butterflies

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We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow interested in studying social behavior using zebrafish models at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR), Cambridge, USA. The goal of the study is to identify genetic and neural basis of social behavior in zebrafish.

Education and preferred qualifications: Ph.D. (completed or near completion) in behavioral neuroscience or related fields; experience in quantitative, large-scale analysis of behavior is a plus; prior experience in zebrafish is not required.

Interested candidates may send their CV, and contact address of three potential referees to ajeet.singh[at]novartis.com. For general information regarding postdoctoral fellowships at the NIBR, please look at http://postdoc.nibr.com/.

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Our latest monthly trawl for developmental biology (and other cool) preprints. See June’s post for background, and let us know if we missed anything

It was another bumper month for preprints, as bioRxiv’s Richard Sever celebrated:

This month we found three pieces on the development of the spinal cord, three investigations into gene expression networks in the early fly embryo, some in vivo cell biology featuring centrosomes and kinesins, as well as a lot of evolutionary content and some very cool sounding tools, perhaps the most striking of which is a hand-powered centrifuge modelled on a whirligig! bioRxiv provided the bulk of the preprints, with one coming from PeerJ.

Happy preprinting…

Developmental Biology

Unraveling the differential dynamics of developmental fate in central and peripheral nervous systems. Dola Sengupta, Sandip Kar

PAPC couples the Segmentation Clock to somite morphogenesis by regulating N-cadherin dependent adhesion. Jerome Chal, Charlene Guillot, Olivier Pourquie

Eph/ephrin signaling controls progenitor identities in the ventral spinal cord. Julien Laussu, Christophe Audouard, Anthony Kischel, Poincyane Assis-Nascimento, Nathalie Escalas, Daniel Liebl, Cathy Soula, Alice Davy

Evo-engineering and the Cellular and Molecular Origins of the Vertebrate Spinal Cord. Benjamin Steventon, Alfonso Martinez Arias

Accelerated cell divisions drive the outgrowth of the regenerating spinal cord in axolotls. Fabian Rost, Aida Rodrigo Albors, Vladimir Mazurov, Lutz Brusch, Andreas Deutsch, Elly M Tanaka, Osvaldo Chara

Transcriptomic Signatures for Ovulation in Vertebrates. Dongteng Liu, Michael Brewer, Shixi Chen, Wanshu Hong, Yong Zhu

A conceptual view at microtubule plus end dynamics in neuronal axons. André Voelzmann, Ines Hahn, Simon Pearce, Natalia P Sánchez-Soriano, Andreas Prokop

Activated Ras expression in eye discs with altered levels of hsrω lncRNA causes JNK-induced Dilp8 secretion and reduces post-pupal ecdysone leading to early pupal death in Drosophila. Mukulika Ray, Subhash C. Lakhotia

Dynamic Maternal Gradients Control Timing and Shift-Rates for Gap Gene Expression. Berta Verd, Anton Crombach, Johannes Jaeger

A damped oscillator imposes temporal order on posterior gap gene expression in Drosophila. Berta Verd, Erik Clark, Anton Crombach, Johannes Jaeger

Odd-paired controls frequency doubling in Drosophila segmentation by altering the pair-rule gene regulatory network. Erik Clark, Michael Akam

Different combinations of ErbB receptor dimers generate opposing signals that regulate cell proliferation in cardiac valve development. Ryo Iwamoto, Naoki Mine, Hiroto Mizushima, Eisuke Mekada

An RNA-binding tropomyosin recruits kinesin-1 dynamically to oskar mRNPs. Imre Gaspar, Vasily Sysoev, Artem Komissarov,Anne Ephrussi

Polo kinase phosphorylation determines C. elegans centrosome size and density by biasing SPD-5 toward an assembly-competent conformation. Oliver Wueseke, David Zwicker, Anne Schwager, Yao Liang Wong, Karen Oegema, Frank Julicher, Anthony A Hyman, Jeffrey Woodruff

Divergence of gene regulatory network linkages during specification of ectoderm and mesoderm in early development of sea urchins. Eric M Erkenbrack, Eric H Davidson

Hypergravity hinders axonal development of motor neurons in Caenorhabditis elegans. Saraswathi Subbammal Kalichamy, Tong Young Lee, Kyoung-hye Yoon, Jin Il Lee

Evaluating the Stability and Flexibility of DNA Methylation Patterns from Stem to Differentiated Cells. Minseung Choi, Diane P Genereux, Jamie Goodson, Haneen Al-Azzawi, Shannon Q. Allain, Stan Palasek, Carol B. Ware, Chris Cavanaugh, Daniel G. Miller, Winslow C. Johnson, Kevin D. Sinclair, Reinhard Stoger, Charles D. Laird

Stem Cell Plasticity and Niche Dynamics in Cancer Progression. Noemi Picco, Robert Gatenby, Alexander Anderson

Dynamics of lineage commitment revealed by single-cell transcriptomics of differentiating embryonic stem cells. Stefan Semrau, Johanna Goldmann, Magali Soumillon, Tarjei S. Mikkelsen, Rudolf Jaenisch, Alexander van Oudenaarden

Strigolactone regulates shoot development through a core signalling pathway. Tom Bennett, Yueyang Liang, Madeleine Seale, Sally P Ward, Dorte Mueller, Ottoline Leyser

Modifications to a LATE MERISTEM IDENTITY-1 gene are responsible for the major leaf shapes of Upland cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.). Ryan J Andres, Viktoriya Coneva, Margaret Frank, John R Tuttle, Sang-Won Han, Luis F Samayoa, Baljinder Kaur, Linglong Zhu, Hui Fang, Daryl T Bowman, Marcela Rojas-Pierce, Candace H Haigler, Don C Jones, James B Holland, Daniel H Chitwood, Vasu Kuraparth

Evolution etc

Promoter architecture and sex-specific gene expression in Daphnia pulex. R. Taylor Raborn, Ken Spitze, Volker P Brendel, Michael Lynch

Increased taxon sampling reveals thousands of hidden orthologs in flatworms. Jose M Martin-Duran, Joseph F Ryan, Bruno Cossermelli Vellutini, Kevin Pang, Andreas Hejnol

Clustered brachiopod Hox genes are not expressed collinearly and are associated with lophotrochozoan novelties. Sabrina M. Schiemann, Jose M. M. Martin-Duran, Aina Borve, Bruno C. Vellutini, Yale J. Passamaneck, Andreas Hejnol

Expression of segment polarity genes in brachiopods supports a non-segmental ancestral role of engrailed for bilaterians. Bruno Cossermelli Vellutini, Andreas Hejnol

Conserved traits of spiralian development in the bryozoan Membranipora membranacea. Bruno Cossermelli Vellutini, Jose M Martin-Duran, Andreas Hejnol

Comparative transcriptomics reveals candidate genes involved in the adaptation to non-marine habitats in panpulmonate mollusks. Pedro Eduardo Romero, Barbara Feldmeyer, Markus Pfenninger

Evolution of simple multicellularity increases environmental complexity. Maria Rebolleda-Gomez, William C. Ratcliff, Fankhauser Jonathon, Michael Travisano

Tools and resources

Assembly of Radically Recoded E. coli Genome Segments. Julie E. Norville, Cameron L. Gardner, Eduardo Aponte, Conor K. Camplisson, Alexandra Gonzales, David K. Barclay, Katerina A. Turner, Victoria Longe, Maria Mincheva, Jun Teramoto, Kento Tominaga, Ryota Sugimoto, James E. DiCarlo, Marc Guell, Eriona Hysolli, John Aach, Christopher J. Gregg, Barry L. Wanner, George M. Church

CIDR: Ultrafast and accurate clustering through imputation for single-cell RNA-Seq data. Peijie Lin, Michael Troup, Joshua W. K. Ho

Highly parallel direct RNA sequencing on an array of nanopores. Daniel R Garalde, Elizabeth A Snell, Daniel Jachimowicz, Andrew J Heron, Mark Bruce, Joseph Lloyd, Anthony Warland, Nadia Pantic, Tigist Admassu, Jonah Ciccone, Sabrina Serra, Jemma Keenan, Samuel Martin, Luke McNeill, Jayne Wallace, Lakmal Jayasinghe, Chris Wright, Javier Blasco, Botond Sipos, Stephen Young, Sissel Juul, James Clarke, Daniel J Turner

Paperfuge: An ultra-low cost, hand-powered centrifuge inspired by the mechanics of a whirligig toy. M. Saad Bhamla, Brandon Benson, Chew Chai, Georgios Katsikis, Aanchal Johri, Manu Prakash

Genetically targeted 3D visualisation of Drosophila neurons under Electron Microscopy and X-Ray Microscopy using miniSOG. Julian Ng, Alyssa Browning, Lorenz Lechner, Masako Terada, Gillian Howard, Gregory Jefferis

Direct determination of diploid genome sequences. Neil I Weisenfeld, Vijay Kumar, Preyas Shah, Deanna Church, David B Jaffe

Biotinylation by antibody recognition – A novel method for proximity labeling. Daniel Zvi Bar, Kathleen Atkatsh, Urraca Tavarez, Michael R Erdos, Yosef Gruenbaum, Francis S. Collins

The impact of chromatin dynamics on Cas9-mediated genome editing in human cells. Rene M. Daer, Josh P. Cutts, David A. Brafman, Karmella Haynes

DNAmod: the DNA modification database. Ankur Jai Sood, Coby Viner, Michael M. Hoffman

The ExAC Browser: Displaying reference data information from over 60,000 exomes. Konrad J Karczewski, Ben Weisburd, Brett Thomas, Douglas M Ruderfer, David Kavanagh, Tymor Hamamsy, Monkol Lek, Kaitlin E Samocha, Beryl B Cummings, Daniel Birnbaum, The Exome Aggregation Consortium, Mark J Daly, Daniel G MacArthur

Bright photoactivatable fluorophores for single-molecule imaging. Luke D Lavis, Jonathan B Grimm, Brian P English, Anand K Muthusamy, Brian P Mehl, Peng Dong, Timothy A Brown, Zhe Liu, Timothée Lionnet

Thousands of primer-free, high-quality, full-length SSU rRNA sequences from all domains of life. Soeren M Karst, Morten S Dueholm, Simon J McIlroy, Rasmus H Kirkegaard, Per H Nielsen, Mads Albertsen

Is there anything we missed for August? Anything in the list that catches your eye? Let us know in the comments section

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August was meant to be a quiet month, with researchers (in Europe, at least)  leaving the lab for a well earned break and winding down before the start of the academic year…but here on the Node we’ve had another bumper month full of diverse content. Happy reading!

Meetings

We had a wonderful report from Joaquín Navajas Acedo, Aleisha Symon and Tsai-Ming Lu from the Woods Hole Embryology Course. They really managed to capture the intense excitement and slight mania of the course, and I’m sure made a lot of readers eager to sign up for next year. I reported from the BSD-ISD in Boston: a fantastic conference, and a wonderful city. I also got to meet Yusuff and Mathew who carried on the SDB-BSDB interview chain (long may it continue!).

Research

We found out about how mechanical signals influence stem cell fate, the link between sex, hormones and stem cells, the genomic changes that accompany multicellularity, the effects of aging on stem cell niches, and, in our latest ‘Day in the life…’ post, what it’s like to work on sponges in Brazil.  I also had the pleasure of revisiting a forgotten classic: Maria de la Cruz’s lineage tracing in the heart.

Meeting people is easy…

We started a new series to complement our usual research posts: The People Behind the Papers, highlighting the faces behind recent exciting developmental biology papers. We started with an interdisciplinary team from Heidelberg who uncovered how nuclear pore complexes get into the nuclear envelope, and then featured Thomas Lozito, author of a recent Development paper on lizard tail regeneration.

Research aides

The folks from DMDD told us about their latest batch of data, and we found out about FaceBase, a free online resource for craniofacial researchers. At the end of the month, Helena Jambor told us why we should never, ever use bar plots for statistical data.

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Applications are invited for a tenure track Assistant Professor faculty position in the Division of Developmental Biology (DB) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). 

DB is home to a large community of developmental biologists (please visit our web site at: http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/research/divisions/d/dev-biology/default/). We are a highly collaborative interdisciplinary group of basic scientists and clinicians studying fundamental questions in developmental biology, the genetic basis of pediatric disease and regenerative medicine.  Being embedded in CCHMC, one of the top ranking pediatric research centers in the world, creates a unique environment in which clinical translation of basic science is greatly enhanced. CCHMC is making a major long-term investment in basic and translational research and developmental biology is one of the pillars in this effort.
 
DB faculty have access to state of the art subsidized cores, to high-quality graduate and MD/PhD programs, and to training programs for postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, residents and clinical faculty. Successful candidates must hold the PhD, MD, or MD/PhD degrees, have recently completed postdoctoral training, have published significant original work and have a mature research plan.

Applicants should submit their curriculum vitae, two to three page research statement focused on future plans, and contact information for three people who will provide letters of recommendation to DB_devbiologists@cchmc.org. Applications must be submitted by December 2, 2016.

The Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and the University of Cincinnati are Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employers. Qualified women and minority candidates are especially encouraged to apply.

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Today’s paper is from the latest issue of Development and  introduces the squid Doryteuthis pealeii as a lophotrochozoan model for eye development. And the people are PI Jeffrey Gross, Director of the Louis J. Fox Center for Vision Restoration and Professor of Ophthalmology and Developmental Biology at the University of Pittsburgh, and lead author Kristen Koenig, who has recently started her own lab at the FAS Centre for Systems Biology at Harvard University.

So Jeffrey, can you give us the brief history of the Gross lab, and what key questions your group is trying to answer?

JG I started the lab 11 years ago at the University of Texas at Austin, and we moved about a year ago to the University of Pittsburgh Medical School.  We’re broadly interested in eye development and diseases.  Major questions in the lab focus on optic cup morphogenesis, the epigenetic regulation of retinal and retinal pigment epithelium development and regeneration.

To be honest, we’re rather unfocused, which I think is great! I encourage the students and postdocs in the lab to come up with their own questions and interests and then to go for them; this is the way I was trained as a Ph.D. student with Dave McClay, and I think it is the best way for Ph.D. students and postdocs to learn how to do science.  As a result, we’ve worked on a fairly diverse set of questions over the time I’ve had the lab and it really makes this is a fun job.

“I encourage the students and postdocs in the lab to come up with their own questions and interests and then to go for them; this is the way I was trained as a Ph.D. student with Dave McClay, and I think it is the best way for Ph.D. students and postdocs to learn how to do science.”

And Kristen: how did you come to join the Gross lab?

KK I decided to go to the University of Texas for graduate school because it seemed like an exciting research environment that had all the scientific resources one could want but was not a competitive or negative place to work. When choosing the Gross lab, I knew I wanted to study evolutionary questions but I was also concerned with generating a positive relationship with my advisor.  The eye is an excellent system to study the evolution and development of complexity and Jeff was amazingly supportive of crazy ideas so it was a good fit.  Also, the developmental biology community at UT was and still is a really exciting and supportive group of researchers.

While your lab usually works on zebrafish, your Development paper focuses on eye development and photoreceptor differentiation in the longfin inshore squid (Doryteuthis paeleii). So why cephalopods, and this squid in particular, for this project?

JG I’ve always been interested in evo-devo work and wanted us to do some work on eye evolution, but this project really didn’t start until Kristen Koenig joined the lab as a Ph.D. student.  The squid project was her idea and I just provided some advice on getting it started – she’s really the brains of the operation!

There is a long history of research using Doryteuthis pealeii at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA and there is terrific infrastructure for collecting adults and obtaining gametes at the Marine Resources Center at the MBL.  Moreover, Kristen and I have spent a significant amount of time at the MBL, which is truly a magical place, so it made a lot of sense to use the resources there and our connections to build Doryteuthis pealeii as a model.  There are also worse places in the world than Woods Hole to have to spend a summer working in the lab!

“They are definitely charismatic embryos.  It is a pleasure to look at them for as long as I do.”

What’s it like working with squid? They look kind of cute…

KK Doryteuthis pealeii are great to work with.  They are a good size, develop at a reasonable pace, they are abundant and resilient to manipulations. Their eyes are quite large during development so for someone interested in visual systems they are quite exciting organisms. As you mentioned, they are definitely charismatic embryos.  It is a pleasure to look at them for as long as I do.

And you get the embryos from Woods Hole?

KK Yes.  During most of my dissertation work I spent every summer at the Marine Biological Labs in Woods Hole.  As Jeff mentioned, the Marine Resources Center there has an excellent capacity to provide access to adult squid and their eggs.  Without the MRC, none of this work would have been possible.  I only have embryos during the summer months so I have to plan my experiments for the year during that time.

Could you give us the paper’s key results in a short paragraph?

JG, KK Our research interest is to better understand visual system evolution across the Bilateria from a developmental perspective. We established the squid, Doryteuthis pealeii, as a lophotrochozoan model for complex eye development. Utilizing histological, transcriptomic and molecular assays we characterized eye formation in Doryteuthis pealeii. Through lineage tracing and gene expression analyses, we demonstrated that cells expressing Pax and Six genes incorporate into the lens, cornea and iris tissue, suggesting a convergent involvement in lens formation. We identified the sole source of retinal tissue in the squid and functional assays demonstrated that Notch signaling is required for photoreceptor cell differentiation and retina organization. These assays support a conserved role for notch signaling in neurogenesis in the cephalopod eye.

Were there any particularly surprising results that came out of the lineage tracing?

JG, KK Our lineage tracing showed that the cells generating the optic lobe originated from a different place than originally thought.  This ultimately has consequences on how we interpret gene expression at these early stages and also suggests that these cells might be migrating to incorporate into the developing optic lobes.

I’m wondering about the question of conservation or convergence (of photoreceptor cell types and the molecular pathways that generate them, in metazoa). What does your work bring to the debate?

JG, KK The photoreceptor cells in the squid retina are rhabdomeric and express r-opsins. There is still a lot to understand about the molecular pathways that generate these cells to enable gene regulatory network comparisons across organisms.  Our work supports a role for notch signalling during neurogenesis within the squid retina.  This may illuminate a conserved function for notch within pseudostratified neuroepithelia.

“Just seeing the basics of eye morphogenesis continues to blow my mind.”

Was there any part of the work you were most proud of?

KK That’s a tough question because each part of the project presented its own set of unique challenges.  The part I still think about regularly is the staging series of eye formation.  Just seeing the basics of eye morphogenesis continues to blow my mind.  There is so much information in those images and when I look at them it only generates more curiosity and questions.

And any part of the work that was particularly frustrating or intractable?

KK Some parts of the lineage tracing were challenging.  The experiment consisted of hundreds of embryos and had many steps and it was important to keeping track of every individual embryo at each step.  Also, half way through the experiment I had to trust the mail delivery system that my specimens wouldn’t get stalled in transit back to Texas and melt into a sad pool of defeat.  In the end I knew the experiment was possible but it was just very important to stay consistently focused and organized.

And you’ve left the Gross lab now? What’s next for you?

KK Yes, I just recently left Texas.  I am now at the FAS Center for Systems Biology at Harvard University.  I am a John Harvard Distinguished Science Fellow and am starting my own lab continuing to study squid eye formation and the evolution and development of visual systems more broadly.

Now you have this squid developmental resource, any future plans to carry on with Doryteuthis? What do you want to know now?

JG I hope to, if Kristen doesn’t mind letting me squat in her lab at Harvard from time to time!  The way the lens develops in the squid is fascinating, and I think the cell biology underlying this will be fun to study.  I hope that we’ll be able to take a look at this in more detail over the next few summers, and use some of the molecular and imaging tools that Kristen has developed to drill down to the mechanism.

(4 votes)

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