“Here’s looking at you, kid” is the famous quote from the movie Casablanca (1942) that Humphrey Bogart’s character, Rick, says to Ilsa (Ingrid –Ingr-oid?– Bergman), his love interest. Hopefully the scientific interest in -oids will yield more results than Rick and Ilsa’s doomed love story. Picture credits: https://wordhistories.net/2018/03/21/heres-looking-at-you/; Vincent van Batenburg, Hubrecht Institute
One does not easily pass up the opportunity to attend an ISSCR conference, especially when said conference is in Vienna, in the leadup to Christmas, and the venue is the Hofburg palace. I was really lucky, therefore, to have the opportunity to attend the meeting, held in Vienna this month, from 4-6 December. The theme of the meeting was “Elucidating Principles of Development with Stem Cells,” and boy, were those principles elucidated. With a suite of stem cells from various organisms available to developmental and stem cell biologists, research groups are now developing and refining ever more numerous and sophisticated ways to represent aspects of embryonic development with them. Accordingly, across the three days of the meeting, we were showered with a variety of talks covering every modality of -oid imaginable.
Vienna ISSCR meeting venue in the Hofburg.
As suggested by the title of the meeting, a big focus was the use of stem cell-based or -derived models (with various -oid names, such as gastruloid, chimeroid, organoid, blastoid, cardioid, axioloid…). These are increasingly sophisticated and are being manipulated and studied in a variety of ways, and it is possible they may be able to supplement to a great extend the requirement for real embryos in research. I find it fascinating that we are now so familiar with the various signalling regimes that are required during different stages and in different tissues in development that it’s possible to replicate synthetically specific stages or tissues of development, starting from pluripotent stem cells (and sometimes extraembryonic stem cells too) – for example only preimplantation or post-implantation development, or axial elongation, or heart development, or neural tissues, or the gut. One of the many benefits of these systems is, of course, that these -oids can be reproducibly generated in great numbers, giving researchers an abundance of material on which to carry out experiments.
The inaugural talk of the meeting was delivered by Denis Duboule, an excellent speaker, whose lab’s extensive work on Hox genes is revealing increasing detail on the workings of the Hox cluster. Specifically, his lab has been using “stembryos” that recapitulate Hox gene expression along the anterior-posterior (or rostro-caudal) axis of the embryo. His use of a rope with interspaced knots and clothespins to represent Hox genes and the CTCF sites that ensure the sequential and appropriately-timed expression of genes along the cluster was a personal highlight. And it was still only 9:30 on the Monday!
St Stephen’s Cathedral on a sunny morning.
The meeting had a strong showing of groups that work on ectodermal/neural tissue models. As someone who is not very familiar with these cell types from my own research, I was nonetheless impressed by how interesting I found them. Among others, there were talks by Paola Arlotta, Barbara Treutlein, Madeleine Lancaster, Thomas Vierbuchen, Anna Kicheva, Sharad Ramanathan, Elly Tanaka, Akanksha Jain, and Jürgen Knoblich. A topic which stood out for me was Joanna Wysocka’s talk on DNA-guided transcription factor cooperativity and its functions in cranial neural crest cells (CNCCs). Briefly, her lab identified a novel long consensus DNA motif, dubbed the “Coordinator,” containing a homeobox and an E-box binding motif. The Coordinator is specifically bound by the bHLH transcription factor Twist1 and homeobox factor Alx4. These interact only when bound to the Coordinator via a tiny segment of a loop only found on Twist1 and no other bHLH factors, thus promoting expression of a host of genes associated with CNCC behaviour.
Another talk on a much less common model organism was by Ali Elagoz, a doctoral student who works on the embryonic development of octopus nervous systems, in a broader effort to identify the evolutionary mechanisms by which cephalopods (octopuses, nautiluses, cuttlefish, and squids) have succeeded in evolving the largest nervous system of all invertebrates. For those not familiar with octopus nervous systems, you might be delighted to find out that only about 1/3 of octopus neurons are actually found in their brains, which, by the way, are wrapped around their oesophagus. Rapid reogranisation of the cephalopod genome and expansion of their suite of protocadherin genes may have contributed to the innovations that permitted the cephalopod brain to dramatically expand in size.
That said, fans of other germ layers were not disappointed, with talks on mesodermal and endodermal specification and derivatives by André Diaz from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (gastruloids), Sasha Mendjan (cardioids), Aryeh Warmflash (2D ESC patterning to study Wnt and Nodal/Activin signalling gradients), Cantas Alev (axial development), Katharina Sonnen (timing of somitogenesis), and Sarah Bowling (hematopoietic stem cells).
Another thematic arc highlighted during the meeting was the novel quantitative aspects that developmental and stem cell biology are being explored from, and which, until very recently, were almost exclusively assessed from a qualitative point of view. Ewa Paluch’s lab, for instance, is studying how epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a process essential in multicellular development, can be approached from the perspective of cell shape. Her lab has developed a “morphospace analysis” pipeline whereby cell shape is segmented and many variables quantified, finally undergoing dimensionality reduction to create a 2D “grid” of possible cell shape phenotypes. Cell shapes were then quantified before, during, and at the end of EMT, with cells undergoing EMT having a much “noisier” cell shape than epithelial cells, in other words exploring more of the morphospace. This suggests an instance of noise-driven transitions, where noise may actually help to overcome a barrier, in this case from an epithelial to a mesenchymal state.
View of the Rathaus (City Hall) on an overcast morning after a fresh layer of snow.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight some methods development talks that really captivated me. Alexdander van Oudenaarden detailed a new method, developed by his postdoc Michael VanInsberghe, for profiling both single cells’ full complement of RNA (as single-cell RNA-seq already does), and their ribosome-bound RNA (like single-cell Ribo-seq) in a single experiment, in order to elucidate gene regulation at the transcriptional vs translational level. This is achievable by titrating MNase (micrococcal nuclease), an enzyme that can digest single-stranded nucleic acids, and that can function both as an endonuclease and exonuclease in a concentration-dependent manner. It’s amazing how such a simple concept can yield such rich data at the single-cell level!
I was also blown away by Kate McDole’s talk on imaging in developmental biology. Her unparalleled skills in custom-building microscopes are a boon to developmental and stem cell biologists who want to image samples that are rapidly growing, undergoing morphogenesis and constantly changing optical properties. Her “event-driven microscopy” platform is designed to assist users in imaging their organisms or organoids in a way that accounts for changes in the sample that are going to be happening in the future, without requiring the constant direct supervision of the user.
There was a broad and interesting array of posters at the meeting, and as always at a conference it was great to have the opportunity to meet researchers at all stages of their career, from many institutes and countries. As I mentioned, the venue was spectacular, and since it was literally a room in the former imperial palace, it was quite easy to become distracted by the numerous chandeliers, marble columns, and the stuccoed ceiling. As a bonus, every morning what I assume was a military band would parade past one of the windows, inadvertently serenading the first speaker of the day with some drumming.
One of the many chandeliers I found distracting during the meeting.
Overall, the conference was a great experience. Nothing quite beats the excitement of hearing scientists talk about their work in person, especially about results that are often fresh out of the oven. And it’s always inspiring to meet new scientists with different interests and approaches to conducting research – you never know where a novel idea for your own work may come from, and which technique or new finding will form the basis for a new avenue of scientific exploration!
Infertility affects around 48 million couples worldwide and can have various causes. In mammals, including humans, eggs are produced in the ovary. When this process goes wrong, it can lead to female infertility. One example of this is premature ovarian insufficiency, which is characterised by problems with egg production before the age of 40. Up to 3.7% of females experience infertility as a result of this condition, and around 30% of cases are due to genetic variations. Professor Kehkooi Kee, from Tsinghua University, China, who helped lead the study, has been investigating this condition for several years. “In 2019, our collaborators, Professor Li’s team, encountered a family with premature ovarian insufficiency in which changes to a gene called Eif4enif1 appeared to be responsible for the disease,” said Professor Kee. The researchers decided to reproduce this genetic change in mice to try to understand how it affects human infertility. They show that the eggs of these mice are affected by changes to their mitochondria – the powerhouses of the cell – and publish this new discovery in the journal Development on 13 December 2023.
Mitochondria (red) are usually evenly distributed throughout eggs (left). In eggs from infertile mice (right), the mitochondria are clustered together. Image credit: Yuxi Ding.
The researchers used CRISPR to introduce the genetic change in the mice. They allowed these mice to grow up and then compared their fertility with the fertility of mice whose DNA had not been edited. Yuxi Ding, the first author and a MD/PhD student who led the study, found that the average number of total follicles (the tiny sacs that contain developing eggs) was reduced by approximately 40% in older and genetically edited mice (the average pup number in every litter was reduced by 33%. Importantly, when grown in a dish, about half of the eggs that were fertilised did not survive beyond the early stages of development. This demonstrated that, just like the human patients, these mice were experiencing problems with fertility.
When the researchers studied the eggs from these mice under the microscope, they noticed something unusual about their mitochondria. Mitochondria produce the energy that cells, including egg cells, need. Mitochondria are usually evenly distributed throughout the egg, but the mitochondria in eggs from mice with the genetic variation were clustered together. “We were actually surprised by the differences in the mitochondria,” said Professor Kee. “At the time we were doing this research, a link between Eif4enif1 and mitochondria had not been seen before.”
It seems likely that these misbehaving mitochondria are contributing to the fertility problems in these mice, leading the researchers to propose that restoring proper mitochondrial behaviour might improve fertility. This study provides direction for future research in human infertility, such as establishing whether mitochondrial defects are also found in the eggs of human patients with premature ovarian insufficiency and whether these same mitochondrial defects are observed in embryos after the eggs are fertilised. In addition, testing whether restoring the normal distribution of mitochondria improves fertility could become a new treatment strategy. “Our research suggests that rescuing oocyte mitochondria abnormality could be a potential therapeutic target for clinical infertility patients with genetic variants,” says Professor Kee.
Ding, Y., He, Z., Sha, Y., Kee, K., Li, L. (2023). Eif4enif1 haploinsufficiency disrupts oocyte mitochondrial dynamics and leads to subfertility. Development, 150, dev202151. doi: 10.1242/dev.202151
Throughout my years in science, I have been drawn to biological questions across scales and have been struck by how often they reflect aspects of societal phenomena. In this piece, I share with you some of my recent work, and how I view it as a lesson on how reductive or myopic definitions can overlook some of the most impactful discoveries and individuals in a collective.
Like many developmental biologists, I am fascinated by our bodies’ extraordinary cell type diversity. The genetic and epigenetic codes in each type of cell will dictate which unique sets of proteins are expressed. Until recently, the role of a large class of genes, now called micropeptides (or microproteins), was largely overlooked. Protein-coding genes were initially defined using a size cutoff of 100 codons; proteins smaller than that were assumed to not fold properly or carry out functions. Starting in 1990, we realized that this biased definition was filtering out potentially functional genes 1–3. Partnered with technological advances, this shift in mindset has allowed the identification of thousands of small open reading frames (sORFs) that may encode functional tiny proteins.
In recently published work, my colleagues and I set out to investigate whether some previously identified long noncoding RNAs in fact encoded micropeptides 4–6. Many of these RNAs were enriched in developing zebrafish brains and could represent uncharacterized small proteins that play important roles in vertebrate neurodevelopment. If this were the case, the loss of these micropeptides could manifest as behavioral phenotypes, a useful means of screening and prioritization. In this study, we showed that two previously identified long noncoding RNAs actually encode micropeptides with homology to a chromatin regulator found exclusively in vertebrates, called Hmgn1. In humans, this chromatin architectural protein is critically overexpressed in Down syndrome 7, and has been identified as a gene linked to autism 8. Through a series of behavioral, pharmacological, cellular, and molecular assays, we found that when these micropeptides were mutated, the gene regulatory networks that establish cerebellar cells and oligodendrocytes were most significantly affected. Intriguingly, these cell types were recently proposed to have appeared and evolved in jawed vertebrates 9. Is it possible that the emergence of these micropeptides co-evolved with the gene regulatory networks that established cerebellar and oligodendrocyte cell types in vertebrates 10–12? This is yet an open question.
Recently, there has been a renewed urgency to understand the existence and vast possible functions of micropeptides, particularly in the brain 13–15. Although there is evidence for thousands of putative micropeptides, the validation and characterization of these proteins will require high-throughput efforts across species, conditions, and cell types 16. Key implications from this field include identifying therapeutic or cell targets for neurodevelopmental diseases or disorders; engineering strategies for therapies directed towards de novo protein or drug design; and identifying molecular strategies for co-evolution of chromatin regions that harbor cryptic ORFs in physiologic, stressed, or disease neural states.
As I was working on this problem, I reflected on what drew me to my fascination with small proteins to begin with. I realized that the scientific question appealed to me because I saw myself and so many of my colleagues in this story. Consider the arbitrary limits placed on the definition of a protein. Evidence for, and acceptance of, changed definitions across fields has enabled a whole world of genes to now be deemed worthy of investigation. As such, this work comes at a time not only of scientific innovation, but also of social transformation. What are we missing when we limit our definitions to only the most dominant, visible, acceptable, status quo? What creativity has been ignored or stifled because it didn’t fit the mold? What are the outsized roles of the forces that shape creative strategies of survival – even thriving – and evolution?
This work also got me thinking about the evolutionary history of these micropeptides 17, and how gene networks and cell types may have co-evolved. Thinking about some of the ways that these micropeptide genes emerge, adapt, evolve, or disappear in different contexts provided me a lens through which to understand and confront some of the societal challenges that the life sciences – and academia at large – are, and have been, facing worldwide 18–21. Around the time I was wrapping up this work on micropeptides in zebrafish neurodevelopment 6, the NASEM report on “Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation” was published 21. In particular, one section drew my attention:
“…the noteworthy ways in which [minoritized] individuals respond to bias in STEMM environments…can be categorized into three general groups: exiting the field, implementing strategies to fit in, and collectively mobilizing to transform the STEMM environment.” 21
How individuals respond to persistent, systemic biases in their environments – exit, adapt, or mobilize – is reflected in what often occurs in biological systems 22,23. Our environments and lived experiences inevitably shape the scientific questions that we ask, how we ask them, and who gets to ask them. The confluence of this report and my own scientific journey highlighted to me how impossible it is to remove ourselves – the experiences and environments of the people doing the science – from the science itself.
So, what are the “micropeptides” in your own work, in your story? I iteratively reflect on these questions both as a basic (neuro)developmental biologist and as an emerging bioethicist 24. As scientists, we can learn from the many unexpected discoveries regarding micropeptides – and any number of yet undervalued fields – to reimagine the tiny changes that can influence entire systems. When they are taken together, they’re not so small after all.
Acknowledgements
In reverse alphabetical order by first name (perhaps you can guess why from my own name), I am grateful to V. Greco, L. Grmai, L. Miao, L. Weiss, E. Strayer, C. Bartman, and A. Giraldez for feedback and/or workshopping through some of these ideas. I am supported by an award from the U.S. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (5K99HD105001).
Author Information
Valerie Tornini is currently an associate research scientist at Yale School of Medicine, and an incoming assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology and the Institute for Society and Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA.
References
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2. Ingolia, N. T., Ghaemmaghami, S., Newman, J. R. S. & Weissman, J. S. Genome-wide analysis in vivo of translation with nucleotide resolution using ribosome profiling. Science324, 218–223 (2009).
3. Slavoff, S. A. et al. Peptidomic discovery of short open reading frame–encoded peptides in human cells. Nat. Chem. Biol.9, 59–64 (2013).
4. Ulitsky, I., Shkumatava, A., Jan, C. H., Sive, H. & Bartel, D. P. Conserved function of lincRNAs in vertebrate embryonic development despite rapid sequence evolution. Cell147, 1537–1550 (2011).
5. Bazzini, A. A. et al. Identification of small ORFs in vertebrates using ribosome footprinting and evolutionary conservation. EMBO J.33, 981–993 (2014).
6. Tornini, V. A. et al. linc-mipep and linc-wrb encode micropeptides that regulate chromatin accessibility in vertebrate-specific neural cells. eLife12, e82249 (2023).
7. Mowery, C. T. et al. Trisomy of a Down Syndrome Critical Region Globally Amplifies Transcription via HMGN1 Overexpression. Cell Rep.25, 1898-1911.e5 (2018).
8. Abuhatzira, L., Shamir, A., Schones, D. E., Schäffer, A. A. & Bustin, M. The Chromatin-binding Protein HMGN1 Regulates the Expression of Methyl CpG-binding Protein 2 (MECP2) and Affects the Behavior of Mice. J. Biol. Chem.286, 42051–42062 (2011).
9. Lamanna, F., Hervas-Sotomayor, F. et al. A lamprey neural cell type atlas illuminates the origins of the vertebrate brain. Nat. Ecol. Evol.7, 1714–1728 (2023).
10. Zalc, B. The acquisition of myelin: An evolutionary perspective. Brain Res.1641, 4–10 (2016).
11. González-Romero, R., Eirín-López, J. M. & Ausió, J. Evolution of High Mobility Group Nucleosome-Binding Proteins and Its Implications for Vertebrate Chromatin Specialization. Mol. Biol. Evol.32, 121–131 (2015).
12. Deng, T. et al. Interplay between H1 and HMGN epigenetically regulates OLIG1&2 expression and oligodendrocyte differentiation. Nucleic Acids Res.45, 3031–3045 (2017).
13. Mudge, J. M. et al. Standardized annotation of translated open reading frames. Nat. Biotechnol.40, 994–999 (2022).
14. Sandmann, C.-L. et al. Evolutionary origins and interactomes of human, young microproteins and small peptides translated from short open reading frames. Mol. Cell83, 994-1011.e18 (2023).
15. Duffy, E. E. et al. Developmental dynamics of RNA translation in the human brain. Nat. Neurosci.25, 1353–1365 (2022).
16. Tornini, V. A. Small protein plays with big networks. Trends Genet. TIG S0168-9525(23)00236–6 (2023)
17. Weisman, C. M. The Origins and Functions of De Novo Genes: Against All Odds? J. Mol. Evol.90, 244–257 (2022).
18. Thorp, H. H. It matters who does science. Science380, 873 (2023).
19. Maina, M. B. African neuroscience: Desperately seeking diversity. UNESCO Cour.2022, 15–16 (2022).
20. Silva, A. et al. Addressing the opportunity gap in the Latin American neuroscience community. Nat. Neurosci.25, 1115–1118 (2022).
21. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Advancing Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEMM Organizations: Beyond Broadening Participation. (The National Academies Press, 2023).
22. Montgomery, B. L. Lessons from Plants. (Harvard University Press, 2021).
23. Montgomery, B. L. Lessons from Microbes: What Can We Learn about Equity from Unculturable Bacteria? mSphere5, e01046-20 (2020).
24. Tornini, V. A., Peregalli Politi, S., Bruce, L. & Latham, S. R. Maximizing biomedical research impacts through bioethical considerations. Dis. Model. Mech.16, dmm050046 (2023).
The webinar on 5 December 2023 was on the topic of germ cell development and was chaired by Development Editor, Swathi Arur (MD Anderson Cancer Center). Below are the recordings of the talks.
Gabriele Zaffagnini (Centre for Genomic Regulation)
Talk and Q&A by Gabriele Zaffagnini
Diego Sainz de la Maza (University College London)
Talk and Q&A by Diego Sainz de la Maza (1 votes) Loading...
In the middle of the Aix-Marseille University Campus, at the heart of the Calanques National Park, at the border of city. The most beautiful academic spot in France ;)
We are mainly investigating temporal patterning, and how it links development with regeneration and pediatric cancers. Along the years, we have identified key factors that are sequentially expressed in the embryo and that are important to ensure that developmental programs unfold with the correct timing. We have found that failure to do so can lock tissues into permanent development leading to aggressive tumors. This mechanism likely underlies the emergence of pediatric cancers. We are therefore working on the various mechanisms that regulate temporal transitions during development or that coopt temporal patterning to promote regeneration 💪🏻 or pediatric cancers 😫. Our model organisms are Drosophila and the chick embryo.
Lab roll call
Cédric: As a PI,my everyday work consists in making sure that everybody is happy to come in the lab every morning to make exciting science.
Dylan: I joined Cedric Maurange’s team as postdoc to understand how miRNAs can regulate the cellular composition, hierarchy, and growth of pediatric tumors in an established Drosophila cerebral tumor.
Paul: I am the team bioinformatician, working as a research engineer on deciphering how the cell-of-origin affects the differentiation trajectory of rhabdomyosarcoma.
Lauranne: As a non-permanent engineer, I investigate how MYCN or c-Myc overexpression perturbs cell lineage progression and cerebellum’s organization by using chick embryo as study model.
Shobana: I am a PhD student in the team investigating the dynamic role of microRNAs in neuronal maturation in Drosophila
Emma: I am a PhD student working on the self-organizing principles governing tumor growth and I am using a model of Drosophila brain tumor as well as a numerical model of tumor growth.
Favourite technique, and why?
Cédric: I am very interested in single-cell techniques. It was such an amazing moment when my student came with our first single-cell RNA-seq data, back in 2017, which so clearly showed the cellular heterogeneity of neuroblast tumors and how temporal programs are recapitulated in them. It became clear that this technique would be key to unravelling how cellular heterogeneity and hierarchy are regulated in cancer.
We are now trying to use single-cell multiomics combined with computational simulations to decipher how perturbed developmental/temporal trajectories can be corrected in tumors. I am very grateful to the mathematicians and computer scientists who enable us to make sense of these complex datasets.
Apart from your own research, what are you most excited about in developmental and stem cell biology?
Cédric: In general, the ability to measure/visualise a biological process at the single cell level, but in the context of a tissue, is really exciting. At the moment, I am particularly excited about the possibility of precisely measuring the transcriptional activity of a gene at a given developmental time in a single cell and correlating it with its chromatin environment. Self-organisation at all molecular and cellular scales is also fascinating, particularly challenging and attractive because understanding it will require the collaboration of biologists, mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists.
How do you approach managing your group and all the different tasks required in your job?
Cédric: Science should be about passion and fun. People in the lab should be self-motivated. There are so many mysteries to be solved in biology, it is easy to pick up one that you are particularly interested in and contribute to solve it. It is very fascinating also to see where the quest leads us.
I like to give time to newcomers in the lab so that they get familiar with the model and take ownership of the project. Hopefully, after some time they will also come with new ideas of how to tackle the problem. We have weekly lab meetings and my door is always open (except when I am on Zoom !). I expect people to naturally come to me when they want to discuss. We frequently do one-to-one meetings to more precisely assess the current situation and which points to concentrate on. We also have a growing number of projects that relies on tight interdisciplinary collaborations. The combined expertise is usually a talisman for the unexpected.
What is the best thing about where you work?
Cédric: The good atmosphere, the multi-disciplinarity of the institute and the multiple possibilities of collaborations with the other institutes on the campus and throughout the city – everything in a fantastic natural environment and sun all year long.
Dylan: Working in the calanques national park, the Luminy campus site is exceptional.
Paul: The good atmosphere and the possibility to work with scientists with really various research fields and interests. Moreover, the lab and the scientific community of Marseille also offer many social events.
Lauranne: We work in a lovely campus surrounded by nature where the positive atmosphere among the 21 IBDM’s teams not only during work hours but also during after- work gatherings adds to the overall pleasure and satisfaction we find in our work environment.
Shobana: In addition to the institute being multi-disciplinary, the friendly and engaging atmosphere makes it easy to approach people for help or discussion, further facilitated by regular seminars and after-work sessions.
Emma: The IBDM, ideally located in the calanques national park, benefits from the very nice weather of Marseille all year long. Moreover, the institute gathers many people from different backgrounds which makes it very interdisciplinary in addition of the nice and friendly atmosphere.
What’s there to do outside of the lab?
Cédric: Walk in the Calanques and discover the various landscape of Provence, enjoy all the activities of the vibrant city that is Marseille.
Paul: The lab is ideally placed in the “Parc National des Calanques”, a sort of nature spot in the periphery of the big city of Marseille, offering the possibility to do some hiking. In the city center, there are some museums, malls etc. and during winter, a beautiful Christmas market on the Vieux-Port.
Shobana: There’s tons to do right outside the lab like hiking, climbing or just walking. Even looking out of the lab window, one can see how beautiful and serene it is being surrounded by the Calanques. A well-equipped sports complex is quite nearby as well, offering training in different sports.
Browse through other ‘Lab meeting’ posts featuring developmental and stem cell biology labs around the world.
“We knew back in the late 1960s that half the human genome was repetitive DNA. And so, where did this myth arise that those scientists were incredibly stupid? I mean, these guys, Jacob and Monod, they got a Nobel Prize!”
In the latest episode of the Genetics Unzipped podcast, we discover how 500,000 whole genomes will help medical research, plumb the depths of the ‘dark genome’, and ponder how much of our DNA is just junk.
If you enjoy the show, please do rate and review on Apple podcasts and help to spread the word on social media. And you can always send feedback and suggestions for future episodes and guests to podcast@geneticsunzipped.com Follow us on Twitter – @geneticsunzip
In the first webinar of 2024, Development’s Deputy Editor, Steve Wilson (UCL), hosts three early career researchers studying signalling and early embryogenesis.
Wednesday 31 January – 15:00 GMT
Jonathan Wells (Cornell University) ‘How does the early embryo make heterochromatin?’
Stephanie Telerman (University of Cambridge) ‘Post-translational regulation of the Numb/Notch pathway in neurogenesis and cancer by Dlk2’
Yuki Shindo (Dartmouth College) ‘Nucleocytoplasmic control of early embryogenic cell cycles’
At the discretion of the speakers, the webinar will be recorded for viewing on demand. To see the other webinars scheduled in our series, and to catch up on previous talks, please visit: thenode.biologists.com/devpres
I’m excited to announce that we have now opened applications for the second round of Development’s Pathway to Indpendence Programme. This programme is aimed at supporting postdocs who will be going on the job market next year – providing mentorship, training and networking opportunities. Having piloted this programme with our first talented cohort of PI fellows through the course of 2023, I’m looking forward to working with a new group of postdocs over the course of next year.
You can find out more about the aims this programme, and the application and selection process, in this editorial and on the journal webpage. We encourage applications from all corners of the globe and all areas of developmental and stem cell biology. Those interested in applying can do so via the Company of Biologists’ grants portal, and you are welcome to reach out to me for more information. The deadline for application is 31 January 2024.
One of the main elements of the programme is an in-person meeting of all the PI fellows. In late October, the first cohort of Development’s Pathway to Independence (PI) fellows got together here at The Company of Biologists’ office on the outskirts of Cambridge for a two-day gathering. Having been in contact with these eight outstanding postdocs over the course of this year, it was great finally to meet them all in person and find out a bit more about them, their research and their career plans.
From L-R: Leah Greenspan, Loic Fort, Priti Agarwal (front), Thomas Juan (back), Clotilde Cadart (with one of the next generation of scientists?!), James Gahan, Yuchuan Miao and Polina Kameneva – outside The Company of Biologists’ office in Histon, Cambridge
Navigating the job market and setting up a lab are huge challenges for which many postdocs feel underprepared, and the PI programme aims to help in some small way by providing training, mentorship and peer support – and by helping to raise the profile of our group of PI fellows. At the meeting in Cambridge, our fellows took part in an intense and interactive leadership training course organised by hfp consulting – many thanks to Franck and Dana for facilitating this event. As one of the fellows commented, the course was “extremely informative and gave me real actionable ideas on how to organise my group”; another noted that they “learned a lot about myself as a trainee and a future PI”.
As well as the training course, each of the PI fellows gave a short talk about their future research plans, and received feedback on their presentation from some of the journal’s editors and directors of the Company of Biologists. Personally, I was hugely impressed by the research directions presented by all eight fellows, and I left the meeting feeling energised and excited about the diverse and innovative programmes they all hope to initiate in their independent labs.
As a fledgling programme, it was important to us to find out how well the various elements of the scheme have worked for our PI fellows, so that we can ensure we provide the best support we can going forwards. We’ve received some really valuable feedback from this year’s group that will help us tweak the programme for next year. But overall, it was really great to hear how useful our PI fellows have found the programme. Here’s what some of them had to say:
This programmed has been a game changer for me as I search for an independent position, giving me unprecedented visibility in the community as well as amazing training that will help me in my transition to being a PI .
Through their multiple networking and training opportunities, the PI program empowered me with tools to help launch my independent group and connect with peers at the same career stage, creating a supportive environment.
This programme made me feel part of a community of talented future group leaders and provided me with great opportunities to promote my applications. Sharing is caring!
I wish all our current cohort of PI fellows luck in finding their first independent position – and congratulate those who have already done so! – and I’m very much looking forward to reviewing the next set of applications, and to working with what I’m sure will be an equally talented group of postdocs next year! Please do get in touch if you have any questions about the programme.
I am glad to announce a new Research Topic / Special Issue for the journal Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences (IF 5.0), edited by Prof Rio Sugimura (University of Hong Kong), Prof Emanuele Azzoni (University of Milan-Bicocca), Dr Antonella Fidanza (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Giovanni Canu (University College London).
Michaela Raab, Ersi Christodoulou, Roopesh Krishnankutty, Nicholas T Younger, Konstantinos Gournopanos, Alexander von Kriegsheim, Scott H Waddell, Luke Boulter
Laura Currey, Benjamin Mitchell, Majd Al-Kahlily, Sarah-Jayne McElnea, Danyon Harkins, Alexandra Pelenyi, Nyoman D. Kurniawan, Thomas H. Burne, Lachlan Harris, Stefan Thor, Michael Piper
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