Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to offer our 3rd Eco-Evo-Devo Postgraduate Summer School from August 8th to 12th 2016 at Oxford Brookes University.

For full details please see the Summer School website:

http://bms.brookes.ac.uk/ceec/courses/eco-evo-devo-summer

Alistair McGregor.

(1 votes)

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A 4-year PhD position is available in the Steinmetz lab to study the role of nutrients and feeding in gamete growth and maturation in cnidarians.

Please find more details on the position and the application here:

http://tinyurl.com/h7y4h6y

More info on the lab:

http://www.sars.no/research/SteinmetzGrp.php

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PhD position available in the McGregor lab (http://mcgregor-evo-devo-lab.net/McGregor_lab/home.html) to investigate the role of gene duplication and divergence during the evolution of spiders, scorpions and other arachnids:

http://master.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=72054

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Cosy Science is an informal pub gathering where scientists talk about their research over a pint of beer (or glass of wine!) with anyone who is interested in listening. It is mostly a monthly event, taking place at The Cittie of Yorke pub in London, and everyone is welcome!

As you may know, The Company of Biologists runs a series of workshops for scientists, and we collaborate with Cosy Science to bring some of the exciting research discussed at the workshops to the general public. Our next workshop will focus on transdifferentiation and tissue plasticity in cardiavascular rejuvenation, and one of the organisers, Dr Brian Black (Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco) will be joining Cosy Science on Wednesday the 10th of February to bring developmental biology to the pub! Brian will give a short talk about what cardiac development in utero and cardiac regeneration in fish and salamanders may be able to teach us about regenerating cardiac muscle after a heart attack. After a short break to refill, the floor will be open for questions and friendly discussion. So if you’re in the area, bring along that friend who always wanted to know what developmental biology is all about, and enjoy an evening of pub science sponsored by The Company of Biologists!

Find out more information at the Cosy Science website.

(1 votes)

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Germline Stem Cells Conference

June 19-21, 2016 – San Francisco, California

Website: www.abcam.com/germlinestemcells

Germline stem cells represent a uniquely critical type of stem cell that is essential for fertility and propagation of the species. The topic of germline stem cells has become an active area of study both in mammalian systems and in non-mammalian model systems including flies, worms and fish.

Free registration for grabs! Abcam and the Node are looking for an official meeting reporter to attend this meeting. The Reporter will be responsible for providing regular updates of interesting talks/discussions for twitter/tweets (by Abcam), plus a meeting report of their experience and the sights and sounds of the meeting (for publishing on The Node and Abcam website).

To apply to be the meeting reporter, please send a short paragraph (max. 200 words) to events@abcam.com, letting us know why you are the best scientist for the job! Application deadline: April 15, 2016. The winner will receive free registration to the meeting (travel and accommodation not included).
Meeting information:

Organizers: John McCarrey (University of Texas at San Antonio) and Jon Oatley (Washing State University)

Keynote Speakers: D.G. (Dirk) de Rooij (Utrecht University) Azim Surani (The Gurdon Institute)

Confirmed speakers: Norman Arnheim, Brad Cairns, Amander Clark, Margaret Fuller, Christopher Geyer, Brian Hermann, Patricia Hunt, Diana Laird, Erika Matunis, John McCarrey, Jon Oatley, Susan Strome, Miles Wilkinson, and Kyle Orwig.

Call for abstracts: Abstracts are invited for short talks or poster presentations and can be submitted during registration. Those selected will be notified after the April 18 deadline.

Check out the article written by last years official meeting reporter winner here!

(4 votes)

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What ho nodites,

I am putting here a link to my latest polemic on the issues discussed in the interview and some others. Of course being carefully written it is a little more accurate and pointed and widely ranging than the verbatim interview.

There might be a way of reading it gratis if you drop me a line, pal38@cam.ac.uk

here is the link

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/bookseries/aip/00702153

Peter

(4 votes)

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

Characterisation of Slc9a6 knockout heterozygous female mice

Sp5 emerges as an important component in mESC naïve pluripotency

Sp5 has been identified as an effector of both Wnt/β-catenin and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF)/Stat3 pluripotency signaling, and its forced expression produces effects of both pathways in mESC pluripotency. Furthermore, Sp5 can convert mouse epiblast stem cells into mESCs. Read the paper here. [OPEN ACCESS]

FGF signalling on E-Cadherin impacts primordial germ cell motility

In this paper, Parès and Ricardo describe how fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling modulates zygotic E-cadherin distribution to maintain posterior midgut epithelial 3D architecture, impacting on primordial germ cell motility during the early embryonic development of Drosophila. Read the paper here.

Targets identified for NF-κB-modulated microRNAs that inhibit myoblast proliferation

Wei and colleagues show that miR-195 and miR-497 target lgf1r, lnsr, Ccnd2 and Ccne1 and inhibit proliferation in C2C12 cells. They also show that these microRNAs are negatively regulated by nuclear factor κB, illustrating an important signalling pathway in myogenesis. Read the paper here.

Reciprocal regulation of alternative lineages by Rgs18 and its transcriptional repressor Gfi1b

Sengupta and colleagues describe how Rgs18, a GTPase-activating protein, and its transcriptional repressor Gfi1b reciprocally regulate the lineage segregation between the megakaryocytic and the erythroid lineage through the downstream effects on the antagonistic transcription factors Fli1 and Klf1. Read the paper here.

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A new 3D viewer that allows interactive visualisation of mouse embryo anatomy is now available from the eMouseAtlas website (www.emouseatlas.org/). A slice viewer allows visualisation of anatomy on arbitrary section through mouse embryos – much like a virtual microtome – whilst a 3D anatomy pop-up window allows users to visualise the delineated anatomical components in an interactive 3D-context as either a wireframe or surface-rendered model. There is the additional option to change colour for selected anatomical components in both the slice viewer and the 3D anatomy pop-up window.

The new viewer uses IIP3D and WebGL technology to allow interactive exploration of 3D anatomy in a HTML5-compatible and WebGL-enabled web-browser and without the need for data download.

eMouseAtlas continues to develop tools and resources that enable high-end visualisation of embryo data. The anatomy is delineated to a very high standard and can be used for both research and for learning. There are future plans to explore use of this 3D viewer in web-based visualisation of 3D gene expression and phenotype data.

(2 votes)

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Applications are invited for a Postdoctoral Research Scientist to join Professor Mathilda Mommersteeg’s laboratory to work on a project focussed on characterising the role of the Slit-Robo signalling pathway in cardiac innervation patterning. The post would be ideally suited to a postdoctoral scientist with experience in working with mouse models and background expertise in mammalian heart development or developmental neuroscience. More information through the link.

You will use conditional knock-out approaches to analyse the role of the pathway in cardiac innervation guidance, both during development and in disease. The techniques used will include immunohistochemistry, use of Amira software for 3D reconstructions of innervation, in vitro axon guidance assays and telemetry ECG analysis.

You must hold, or be near completion of, a PhD or equivalent in a relevant area of research and have a background in mammalian developmental biology and/or cardiovascular sciences and/or neuroscience.

You will be based in the Sherrington Building in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford.

The position is funded by the British Heart Foundation for up to 2.5 years.

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on Monday 8 February 2016.

https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=121602

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Today, when we want to capture an image given by the microscope we can either snap a photograph of it or obtain a computer-generated image. But prior to when photographic methods began making their way into biology labs and journals, this meant you had to draw it. For embryologists, this meant creating accurate, detailed drawings of either live or fixed embryos. Because developing embryos are three-dimensional, complex, and constantly changing, being able to render them by hand, let alone to see and make sense of them, was no simple feat. The task required meticulous observation of both the form and movement of cells, tissues, and structures. Pencil and paper weren’t used only as a recording device to create figures for publication, they also served as a form of note taking and played a central role in guiding embryologists’ observations of specimens placed under the microscope.

A particularly rich example of the role of drawing and image making in late-19th century embryology is Edwin Grant Conklin’s cell lineage study of Crepidula fornicata embryos, a marine slipper snail that can be found all along the New England coast. Carried out at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA in the 1890s, this was a significant and influential body of work, especially with regards to cell divisions in the early embryo and the establishment of the germ layers. In The Embryology of Crepidula, the culmination of this study that was published in 1897, Conklin follows the division of nearly every cell from the uncleaved zygote all the way through to the larval stage. In doing so he demonstrated that the germ layers, particularly the mesoderm, and certain organs arose from specific, individual blastomeres in the early embryo.

Edwin Grant Conklin drawing at the microscope. (Image credit: Scott, Julian, “Edwin Grant Conklin at the microscope.” History of the Marine Biological Laboratory. https://hpsrepository.asu.edu/handle/10776/6064. Undated.)

Such a meticulous study of the form and movement of individual cells required Conklin to take detailed notes, the majority of which were in the form of hundreds of drawings and sketches. Especially in the later, more complex stages, these drawings were crucial to help him keep track of cells and to record exactly what he was seeing through the microscope. Because once he removed them from their egg sacs, Conklin couldn’t keep the Crepidula embryos alive long enough to see any substantial part of development, he worked mostly from fixed specimens stained with hematoxylin. Thus, his sketches were also key for piecing the developmental process back together from static “snapshots” of varying stages he encountered on every slide.

Not only were the drawings themselves important but the process of producing them played a fundamental role in Conklin’s observation of each embryo. The inextricable relationship between drawing and observation was widely understood and appreciated in the late-19th century and even into the early-20th century. At this time, drawing was regarded as foundational to the education of biologists and to any research process, especially those involving a microscope. In Conklin’s Laboratory Directions in General Biology he writes, “drawings should be made of every object studied; this is necessary not only as a record of what has been seen, but also as an aid to accurate observation” (p. 6, 1st edition). Drawing requires the observer to make decisions about what to depict, necessitating immediate and thorough examination of the entire specimen, and choosing how to depict it. The process of drawing with the hand also heightens awareness of the spatial relationships of the components depicted.

Like the majority of his contemporaries, Conklin almost always employed a camera lucida while sketching. Used widely throughout the 19th and 20th centuries by both scientists and artists, a camera lucida allows for a drawing surface to be seen simultaneously with the specimen of interest through the eyepiece of the microscope. Through a series of angled mirrors, the drawing surface and pen or pencil is superposed onto the specimen of interest. Because specimens can essentially be traced, Conklin believed that the use of the camera lucida allowed him to make his figures and observations as accurate as possible and to make sure that his claims were based on phenomena he actually saw.

Drawing with a camera lucida from Conklin’s Crepidula slides myself. I had the chance to study the slides while working with the MBL History Project at the MBLWHOI Library this past summer. (Image credit: Beatrice Steinert)

In his study of Crepidula embryos, Conklin created hundreds of camera lucida sketches, many of which have survived. The central role of these sketches in his process is made clear by the numerous markings on them. Many are marked with arrows, indicating divisions and movements, as well as identifying labels with question marks. Conklin then compiled those sketches into one hundred and five final, detailed figures drawn with pencil and watercolor. These were sent off to a lithographer in Germany who copied them onto lithography plates. The plates were printed and put through several rounds of proofing before finally being bound into the publication.

Although much of the technology for creating them has changed, images still play a hugely important role in developmental biology. While photography has largely taken the place of drawing as the primary means of collecting data and producing figures for publication, many of the same concerns still remain with regards to how images are produced and what they depict. Like Conklin with his camera lucida sketches, biologists today often take hundreds of photographs of what they see through the microscope. Those images are then sorted through, compiled, and sometimes even slightly modified to produce publishable figures.

While drawing by hand is no longer necessary to generate images of developing embryos, its role as an aid to observation, either from photographs or specimens themselves, still makes it a valuable and relevant skill. Especially for those wanting to learn or develop observation skills, drawing greatly enriches the experience of interacting with an embryo. It actively engages the hand in the act of seeing, heightens spatial awareness, and draws the eye to subtle details that may otherwise be overlooked.

To learn more about my research on Conklin and visualization and image making in developmental biology and to keep up to date, visit me at my website or on twitter.

To learn more about Conklin and his work, check out the Edwin Grant Conklin exhibit on the MBL History Project’s website.

References:

Conklin, Edwin Grant. “The embryology of Crepidula: A contribution to the cell lineage and early development of some marine gasteropods.” Journal of Morphology 1897, 13(1): 1-226.

(6 votes)

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