Each year, the British Society for Developmental Biology (BSDB) awards the Beddington Medal to the best PhD thesis in developmental biology. The 2015 award went to John Robert Davis, who did his PhD with Brian Stramer at King’s College, London. We caught up with John at the BSCB/BSDB Spring meeting, where he gave a talk, and we asked him about his thesis work on contact inhibition, what he is doing now and his passion for comedy.

Congratulations on winning the Beddington Medal. What does this prize mean to you?

It is a huge honour! One of the first meetings I ever attended was a BSCB/BSDB Spring conference like this one, where Helen Weaver won the Beddington Medal. I will always remember thinking ‘wow, what a great honour and privilege to be recognized in such a way’, especially at that conference which was attended by big names in developmental biology such as John Gurdon. To be this year’s winner is a huge honour, although also a bit surreal!

I guess it was also a chance for you to attend this meeting?

I have just changed labs since finishing my PhD, so going to conferences was not in the agenda. So being invited to give the Beddington Medal talk gave me the opportunity to attend this meeting. It has been a great conference so far. I had the chance to chat with many people and it was amazing to hear Lewis Wolpert speaking last night.

Can you tell us a about your thesis work?

I worked with Drosophila hemocytes, trying to understand how they are able to form a characteristic 3 line pattern in the embryo. Hemocytes undergo a phenomenon known as contact inhibition, in which the migrating cells come into contact and then repel each other. I wanted to know whether contact inhibition could be driving this embryonic pattern. We developed a mathematical model to look at this question and found that contact inhibition was driving the emergence of this pattern. However, that could only be the case if collisions happened in a very specific way. So I spent the remainder of my PhD looking at how contact inhibition could be regulated and if it was as tightly controlled as it needed to be. I eventually focused on the actin cytoskeleton, which seemed to be playing a huge role in this process. We studied the role of actin during collisions and saw that as cells come into contact they play a cellular game of tug of war, pulling against each other. This seems to allow them to control their repulsion, and to form this evenly disperse 3 line embryonic pattern.

Why did you use Drosophila hemocytes as a system in which to study contact inhibition?

These cells are absolutely beautiful and easy to image in vivo. In addition, unlike other systems of contact inhibition like neural crest, where cells can maintain contacts and move as an epithelial sheet, hemocytes like to be by themselves. They don’t like to stay in contact with other cells for a prolonged period of time. This means that when you examine collisions you are only looking at two cells at a time, which simplifies the analysis and makes it easier to interpret. Finally, the power of Drosophila genetics allows us to quite easily manipulate the proteins that could be involved in this process.

So a versatile system.

Versatile, yes, and they are beautiful as well. The most beautiful cell type I have ever seen! You could be making a movie on the microscope and a visitor to the lab would have a look and be amazed: ‘Wow, you can see these cells move in real time’! It was a privilege working with them.

You mentioned how you created a mathematical model to examine how contact inhibition could explain the pattern generated by the hemocyte migration. Did you have to collaborate with mathematicians to generate this model? What do you think is the value of such interdisciplinary collaborations and what are the challenges involved in a successful collaboration of this nature?

None of the work that I did during my PhD would have been possible without working with mathematicians and engineers. It is a bit daunting at times, but I was very fortunate that there was another PhD student in the lab, Andrei Luchici, who is really good at explaining mathematical concepts. We used to have weekly maths sessions where he would explain things to us! I think this was very important. You hear stories about people who work with theoreticians and don’t have a clue what they are doing. I think it is important for them to just sit down with pen and paper and go through it and try to understand it. It is very rewarding. I feel that it is has helped me have an understanding of how things can possibly be working in Biology. It was a great honour, and good fun as well.

So in the future you won’t avoid collaborating with people in different fields…

No, I won’t avoid it. In fact, as part of the postdoc I have just started I will be working with more mathematicians and theoreticians. I think I’m always going to be next to a theoretician!

You mentioned how you worked out one mechanism by which contact inhibition could be regulated and controlled. Do you think that this mechanism, and indeed contact inhibition, plays a part in cell motility in other in vivo systems?

A recent paper modeled the patterning of cajal-retzius neurons in the same way that we did with Drosophila hemocytes, and reached very similar conclusions. It will be interesting to see if the mechanism that is at work in hemocytes is also involved in neuronal cells. Contact inhibition was first studied by Michael Abercrombie in fibroblasts back in the 50s, and a lot of the behaviours that we observe in hemocytes are also observed in fibroblasts. So a similar mechanism may also be occurring in fibroblasts. It could be a general process, but there is still a lot of work to do in other cell types to understand the role of actin in those collisions.

You mentioned that you are now doing a postdoc. Can you tell us a little bit what you are working on at the moment?

Im working in the lab of Nic Tapon, at the Crick Institute, looking at the mechanical regulation of the Hipo pathway, or Yorkie activity. We are examining Drosophila abdomen development, looking at histoblast proliferation and growth arrest during this process. It is early days but very exciting, and it involves more mechanics.

I hear you have a sideline as a comedian. Do you talk about science in your comedy?

Yeah, I have been doing comedy for many years, mainly improvised comedy and sketches. My writing partner has a physics PhD so our humour is very science related, and our jokes are somewhat geeky! But something I have recently been involved in which is a great way that comedy and science have come together is a show called The Wunderkammer. There is an improv group called ‘Do not adjust your stage’, and they do this show where they ask experts to talk about their fields (Biology, Physics, etc) and then create a whole show just based on that person’s research. I have been involved with them a few times and it has been really good fun, and the public loves it.

Do you have any advice for new PhD students?

I think my PhD was successful because of the people I worked with. I had a great supervisor and worked with some fantastic people that were always nurturing and helping me at various stages. So my advice is that you should try to find people to mentor you and help you. It is difficult to know in advance if your supervisor will be good or bad, but try to find other people in your department that will help you.

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An experienced and meticulous Research Assistant is required to the join the Cardiovascular Development, Repair and Regeneration group led by Professor Paul Riley (in collaboration with Professor Tatjana Sauka-Spengler). The post is ideally suited for a candidate with an interest in developing a career that involves working at the interface of Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine, with a strong background in the former.

The Research Assistant will support work on deciphering the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in the regenerating epicardium of the adult zebrafish heart, using a range of different techniques including CRISPR/Cas9 technology, Nanostring analysis, in situ hybridisation and multiplex hybridization chain reaction, tissue cryosectioning, immunofluorescence microscopy. Microinjection of zebrafish embyros, cell sorting, and management of wild type and genetically modified zebrafish lines.

You will have a first degree in biological or biomedical sciences, previous laboratory experience, with particular emphasis on embryology and advanced molecular biology methods. You will be organized and enthusiastic, demonstrating a high level of commitment to the work.

The position is funded by the British Heart Foundation, to cover maternity leave. It is available from 1 June 2015 until 31 January 2016.

The closing date for applications is noon on Wednesday, 6 May 2015. Interviews will be held on Thursday, 14 May 2015.

For more information and further particulars, please visit:

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/519765-research-assistant-in-developmental-and-regenerative-medicine-maternity-cover

https://www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.display_form

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The MRC National Institute for Medical Research has celebrated its centenary in 2014. On 1st April 2015 NIMR ceased to exist, as it became part of the new Francis Crick Institute. To commemorate this event, I proposed to produce a textile artwork as a lasting memento of NIMR. Each current research lab, support section and club was invited to create a piece of artwork on a small square of cloth. They were then combined into a single work that celebrates the science, life and ethos of NIMR.

Image 1 – a full view of the completed NIMR canvas, which consists of one hundred individual pieces. (click to see bigger image)

Below, I present the patches created by the developmental biologists from NIMR. These patches are beautifully crafted with an impressive array of imagination and creativity.

NIMR is home to many world renowned developmental biologists, past and present, among them is Rosa Beddington. Rosa was an influential figure and a gifted artist. One of her drawings inspired two pieces of artwork for the canvas.

Image 2 – drawing by Rosa Beddington to illustrate the conservation of developmental pathways between the mouse, frog, fruit fly and fish.

Image 3 – hand stitched by Alan Palmer from Biological Services. This is an adaption of the Rosa Beddington sketch and represents the diversity of animal models used at NIMR and the adaptability of Biological Services in providing the best possible care and welfare for all animals.

Image 4 – mixed media artwork by Patti Biggs at the Library. Interestingly, Patti added her own interpretation of Rosa’s drawing by turning the tail of the mouse into a nematode worm, another well known model organism in developmental biology.

Below are some pieces created by current NIMR labs in the field of developmental biology. These artworks were produced with various techniques including fine needlework such as cross stitches, applique, beading as well as painting and printing.

Image 5 – Jim Smith lab by Elsie Place, Alex Eve, Melissa Estima and Rita Monteiro, depicting the SuperFrog. ‘SuperFrog’ was inspired by past and current research in Smith lab as an energetic action hero. The boxed ‘T’ symbol on SuperFrog’s chest represents Brachyury and other members of the T-box transcription factor family.

Image 6 – Robin Lovell-Badge lab by Rosalyn Flower. The lab studies how the vertebrate gonad develops to become a testis in males or an ovary in females, a process known as sex determination. This is depicted on the canvas as a battle between the sexes. On the left is a male mouse and a cartoon of the testis with its characteristic cords and on the right is a female mouse and a cartoon of the ovary with its characteristic follicles.

Image 7 – Robin Lovell-Badge lab by Robin Lovell-Badge and Karine Rizzoti. The lab found Sox2 and Sox9 have pleiotropic roles during mouse development and in stem cells in the adult. For example, SOX2 is essential for pluripotent cells in the early embryo, such as those of the early epiblast and inner cell mass of the blastocyst (top left), embryonic and other pluripotent stem cells in culture (bottom left), progenitors in the developing hypothalamo-pituitary axis (top right), and neural stem cells (NSCs) in vitro and in vivo, including in specialised niches in the adult brain (bottom right). In the embryo, maintenance of early pituitary progenitors (top left, blue) depends on signals from the overlying ventral diencephalon (green). In the adult brain NSC niche (bottom right), in the lateral ventricles, ependymal cells (green), and the microvasculature (red) contribute signals that help to regulate activation, proliferation and differentiation of the NSCs.

Image 8 – Kathy Niakan lab by Sissy Wamaitha. The patch illustrates the foundations for the models (mouse and human) used to understand mammalian development in the lab. Elements of the embryo development timeline from a standard figure in the lab show the series of cell divisions culminating in the formation of the blastocyst in early mouse and human development; stem cells and later stages of development (foetus and adult) are also included.

Image 9 – James Turner lab by Shantha Mahadevaiah, Daniel Snell and Fanny Decarpentrie. The piece encapsulates their work on sex chromosomes and development in mammals using the model organisms Mus musculus, the house mouse, and Monodelphis domestica, the short-tailed grey opossum. From top left, clockwise: opossum, in pop-art style; RNA FISH using opossum embryonic fibroblast; E13 opossum embryo; chromosomal spread from mouse testis; and mouse embryo at E10.5.

Image 10 – James Briscoe lab by Mina Gouti. The canvas was inspired from her recent work showing the generation of neuromesodermal progenitors in the culture dish from mouse and human embryonic stem cells following the cues from mouse embryonic development. Cells of different colours in a petri dish represent in vitro generated neuromesodermal progenitors. These are the building blocks of the spinal cord and most of the muscle tissue in our body. The different colours show the potential of these cells to form both the different spinal cord progenitor domains as well as the adjacent somites.

Image 11 – David Wilkinson lab by Angela Cheung, Megan Addison, Hannah Stanforth, Harriet Taylor, David Wilkinson, Zhonglin Wu and Qiling Xu. It illustrates the focus of the lab in the mechanisms and roles of cell segregation and boundary formation in the developing hindbrain. The design depicts various themes of the lab’s work. At the top are zebrafish embryos at four different stages of development. In the middle, the segmented organization of the hindbrain is shown, with segments in green and red, boundary cells in yellow, and fgf20-expressing neurons in gold. Below are green- and red-labelled HEK293 cells expressing Eph receptor and ephrin that are used to investigate mechanisms of cell segregation.

Image 12 – Rainbow fish by Qiling Xu, depicting a transgenic rainbow zebrafish, red eye selection and NIMR workshop-made moulds used for live imaging. It shows appreciation for the animal facility, biological service and aquatic staff at NIMR. So long, “thanks for all the fish!” A quote from Douglas Adams.

Image 13 – Greg Elgar & Mike Gilchrist labs by Lilly Hunt, Greg Elgar, Mike Gilchrist, Johanna Fischer, Htoo Wai, Stefan Pauls, Laura Doglio, Boris Noyvert, Joe Grice, Brook Cooper, Ian Grant, Nick Owens, Ilya Patrushev, Elena DeDomenico and Rosa Gomes Faria. This is a joint patch from the two labs as they work closely together, sharing lab space and ideas. The Gilchrist lab works with Xenopus embryos whereas the Elgar lab uses zebrafish, and both model organisms are incorporated onto the canvas. The Warhol style in his famous Marilyn Monroe images was used to create a striking image.

Image 14 – Tim Mohun lab by Christina McGuire. The foundation of the piece is a 3 micron thick HREM (high resolution episcopic microscopy) image of a 14.5 day old mouse embryo which has been coloured and printed onto the canvas. The embryo’s developing structures have been highlighted using metallic paint, silver thread, beads, glitter and angelica fibres, accentuating the beauty of the embryo. The image was chosen as it represents both the Mohun group research on heart development, and the Wellcome Trust funded DMDD (Deciphering the Mechanisms of Developmental Disorders) programme which aims to study “embryonic lethal” mouse mutations, and begin to understand why their mutation has such profound effects on embryo development and survival.

Image 15 – Vassilis Pachnis lab by Sarah McCallum. The canvas represents a cross section of the gut showing the Enteric Nervous System (ENS) in blue with the myenteric and submucosal plexus in the gut wall, and the neuronal fibres entering the villi.

Image 16 – Siew-Lan Ang lab by Siew-Lan Ang and Shabana Khan, depicting midbrain dopaminergic neurons and their amazing journey to the forebrain.

Image 17 – Francois Guillemot lab by Debbie Van den Berg, Noelia Urban, Isabelle Blomfield and Koji Oishi, showing the adult neural stem cells, with their typical long radial processes, in various states of cell activation. They are depicted either in their natural niche, the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, where they contribute to memory formation, or sprouting from a tissue culture dish, where their response to various stimuli can be studied in a detailed and controlled manner.

Image 18 – Sila Ultanir lab by Suzanne Claxton and Lucas Baltussen, showing a hard working minion. The kinase reaction that replaces the eye stands for the lab’s focus on kinases in a neurodevelopmental background depicted by the surrounding neurons.

Image 19 – Iris Salecker lab by Iris Salecker, Holger Apitz, Kathleen Dolan, Richard Kaschula, Benjamin Richier and Nana Shimosako. This patch shows an adult visual system of the fruit fly – a model to understand how neural circuits assemble during development. It contains clues to the past and ongoing research. Stippled lines reveal the organization of axonal and dendritic neurites into synaptic layers. Beads in “Flybow” colors represent the cell bodies of neurons and glia. We included our favorite cell types: photoreceptor axons R1-R8 (green), lamina neuron L3 (blue, left), Nana’s medulla neuron Tm20 (blue, right), Richard’s amacrine-like medulla neuron Dm3 (yellow), Benjamin’s and Kathleen’s astrocyte-like medulla neuropil glia (red, center) and Holger’s lobula plate neuron T4 (yellow). Light green symbolizes the expression of one of our molecules of interest, the chemoattractant guidance cue Netrin-B.

Image 20 – Jean-Paul Vincent lab by Zoe Vincent and Iris Salecker, showing a cubist version of Drosophila, used to investigate signaling between cells and to determine how signalling contributes to growth, patterning and cell death.

Further information on the history of NIMR and the Developmental Biology at NIMR can be found in the following links:

http://www.historyofnimr.org.uk/100-years-of-science-for-health-the-book/

http://www.historyofnimr.org.uk/files/2014/07/chapter21.pdf

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• The BSDB committee invites self-nominations for a new post graduate representative. Please, include a short text (max. 1 page) explaining your motivation and intentions to serve on the committee. Deadline will be 1 June 2015.
• There will be a new BSDB women in science prize for mid-career female scientists (~ 15 years post PhD). Detailed information about the application procedure will be announced very soon (a nomination letter similar to the Waddington medal procedure and a 2 page CV). Deadline will be 1 July 2015. We would be grateful if you could start thinking about high profile candidates.
• Similarly, the Waddington Medal nomination deadline will be 1 August 2015, and it is time to think about outstanding candidates. Nomination procedures are explained here.
• Finally, the BSDB is approaching its 70^th anniversary in 2018. We are concerned that documents of the pioneer days might get lost with increasing numbers of older BSDB members approaching retirement. Please, let us know if you have old documents including old newsletter (we currently can’t trace back further than 2^nd half of 1999). We will make sure that such documents are being stored and/or digitalised and kept for future research. Furthermore, we would like to reconstruct the list of BSDB chairs starting from the inaugural meeting. Any help with this would be most welcome. Just contact Andreas Prokop under comms@bsdb.org.

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7th Young Embryologist Network Annual General Meeting
15^th May 2015
09:15-17:30 King’s College London

Registration and abstract submission are now open! 

Abstract submission closes TOMORROW! 

The 7th Young Embryologist Network AGM aims to bring together developmental biologists from across the UK (and beyond) to discuss their work. This year is likely to be the largest YEN AGM yet!

This year, YEN is honoured to have Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz (University of Cambridge) present The Sammy Lee Memorial Lecture. As well as three talk sessions and a poster break, we will also have career-development guidance, comprising of a Careers Q&A session and presentations from newly established PIs: we are honoured to have Dr. Melina Schuh (University of Cambridge) and Dr. Sarah Woolner (University of Manchester) speaking this year.​

As in previous years, this meeting is completely free thanks to the generosity of our sponsors: The Company of Biologists, New England Biolabs, Roche, REGEN, F1000, Transnetyx, Cambridge Bioscience, MRC: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, University College London: CBD and The Francis Crick Institute.

We are looking for talks from embryologists, stem cell biologists and developmental biologists who work on one or more of the following topics:

– Stem Cells and Differentiation

– Early Embryonic Development

– Forces in Morphogenesis

Posters are encouraged relating to any research topic within embryology, stem cell biology and developmental biology.

The deadline for abstract submission is Midnight 21st April (TOMORROW!).  

To submit an abstract: http://goo.gl/forms/86yQaST0Up

Register now to secure your place!:  http://goo.gl/SwQJFr 

For more information see:

http://www.youngembryologist.org

https://twitter.com/YEN2015

https://www.facebook.com/groups/162682597092683/

or contact us directly: youngembryologistnetwork@gmail.com

(1 votes)

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A Postdoctoral position is available in the Department of Development and Differentiation at the Centro de Biología Molecular Sevéro Ochoa to study the mechanisms of Hh signalling regulation during eye development and stem cell function, following our recent publication (Cardozo et al 2014, Nat Comm). This project falls within the general interest of our research aimed at elucidating the mechanisms that control cell-to-cell communication during neural development and neurodegeneration. The project will involve the use of zebrafish as a model together with in vitro culture system, in vivo time-lapse microscopy.

The applicants should be highly motivated individuals with a strong background in molecular and developmental biology and a good knowledge of English. The applicants should be able to plan and execute experimental research independently and work effectively in a team. Previous experience in zebrafish and neurobiology would be an asset.

Please send applications with a brief description of career goals together with a CV and the contact information for at least two referees to:

Paola Bovolenta

Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa. CSIC-UAM.

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

C/ Nicolás Cabrera, 1 28049 Cantoblanco, Madrid. Spain

Tel:   34 91 196 4718 (office)

34 91 196 4720 (lab)

Fax:   34 91 196 4420

email: pbovolenta[at]cbm.csic.es

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This is a news item which was first posted on the bsdb.org site. Please, note that not all items will be duplicated on The Node, and that only the BSDB site is being updated with further information (particularly relevant for this news post). To ensure you stay informed about BSDB matters, please, take two minutes to subscribe for email notifications on the bsdb.org site simply by entering your email address (3rd item in the right hand bar). Be ensured that the amount of emails you receive will usually not exceed one per week or fortnight.

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The joint BSDB/BSCB spring meeting has again been a great and most successful event. As every year most of our Awards are announced on this meeting and the BSDB would like to congratulate all prize winners and awardees:

Main Awards

• BSDB Waddington Award winner: Lewis Wolpert (UCL, London) who presented a talk about his seminal discoveries of concepts of positional information (soon available online)
• BSCB Hooke Award winner: Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke (Barts Cancer Inst, QMUL, London) who presented a talk entitled: “From the Garden to the Lab” about using angiogenesis as a target for cancer treatment (soon available online)
• BSCB WICB Award winner: Victoria Cowling (Univ. Dundee) who presented a talk “Regulation of mRNA capping in embryonic stem cell pluripotency and differentiation” (soon available online)
• BSDB Beddington Award winner: John Robert Davis (then at Kings, London with Brian Stramer, now at CRUK/Crick, London, with Nic Tapon) who presented a talk entitled “Intercellular forces orchestrate cell repulsion and embryonic pattern formation“
• 1^st BSDB PhD Poster Prize winner (visit to 2015 SDB meeting, Utah): Wendy Gu (Univ Cambridge, with M Landgraf) – “The role of Wnt5 ligand and the Ryk family Wnt receptors in positioning neurites along the anteroposterior axis of the developing Drosophila ventral nerve cord“
• 1^st BSCB PhD Poster Prize winner (visit to 2015 ASCB meeting, San Diego): Sam Crossman (NIMR/Crick, London, with JP Vincent) – “Apoptosis in Drosophila patterning mutant embryos occurs in regions with low epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signalling“

Runners Up for PhD Poster Prize (sponsored by Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol)

• Sebastian Judd-Mole (£200 prize; Monash Univ, with RB Burke) – “Functional characterisation of voltage gated chloride channel proteins in Drosophila“
• Jingchao Zhang (£150 prize; SCRM, Univ Edinburgh, with I Chambers) – “Interactions between Otx2 and Nanog regulates self-renewal network“
• Hannah Roddie (£150 prize; Univ Sheffield, with IR Evans) – “The apoptotic cell receptor Simu is required for normal inflammatory responses in Drosophila embryos“

PostDoc Prizes (Sponsored by Gene Tools)

• Monica Faronato (£150 prize; Imperial College, London, with L Magnani) – “DMXL2 regulates Notch in endocrine resistant breast cancer“
• Andrew Bailey (£150 prize; NIMR/Crick, London, with AP Gould) – “An antioxidant role for lipid droplets in a stem cell niche of Drosophila“

Others

• BSCB Science writing Prize winner: Ross Harper (UCL, London) for an essay on antibiotic resistance which can be read here.
• The BSCB Image Award winners are listed here.

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New BSDB committee members

Five of the BSDB commitee members, Malcolm Logan (2008-2015), Jenny Nichols (2010-2015), Lynda Erksine (2010-2015), Andrew Chalmers (2010-2015) and the Graduate Representative  Magdalena Stasiulewicz (2013-2015), will end their term this autumn and we would like to thank them for their outstanding service to the BSDB.  We are glad to be able to announce that four excellent successors have been elected on our AGM who will officially take term in autumn but will already respond to your queries or requests.

• Alistair McGregor (Oxford Brookes Univ) – Evolution of animal development and morphology – arthropods including Drosophila
• Berenika Plusa (The Univ. of Manchester) – Early mammalian embryogenesis – mouse
• Tristan Rodriguez – (Imperial College, London) – cell fate decisions and cell survival in the early mammalian embryo – mouse and ES cells
• Rita Sousa-Nunes – (Kings College, London) – Neural Proliferation and Tumourigenesis – Drosophila

A call for nominating the postgraduate representative will go out very soon, so please, start to think about candidates.

(2 votes)

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7th Young Embryologist Network Annual General Meeting

15^th May 2015

09:15-17:30 King’s College London

Registration and abstract submission are now open!

The 7th Young Embryologist Network AGM aims to bring together developmental biologists from across the UK (and beyond) to discuss their work. This year is likely to be the largest YEN AGM yet!

This year, YEN is honoured to have Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz (University of Cambridge) present The Sammy Lee Memorial Lecture. As well as three talk sessions and a poster break, we will also have career-development guidance, comprising of a Careers Q&A session and presentations from newly established PIs.

As in previous years, this meeting is completely free thanks to the generosity of our sponsors: The Company of Biologists, New England Biolabs, Roche, REGEN, F1000, Transnetyx, Cambridge Bioscience, MRC: Centre for Developmental Neurobiology, University College London: CBD and The Francis Crick Institute.

We are looking for talks from embryologists, stem cell biologists and developmental biologists who work on one or more of the following topics:

– Stem Cells and Differentiation

– Early Embryonic Development

– Forces in Morphogenesis

Posters are encouraged relating to any research topic within embryology, stem cell biology and developmental biology.

The deadline for abstract submission is Midnight 21st April.  

To submit an abstract: http://goo.gl/forms/86yQaST0Up

Register now to secure your place!:  http://goo.gl/SwQJFr 

For more information see:

http://www.youngembryologist.org

https://twitter.com/YEN2015

https://www.facebook.com/groups/162682597092683/

or contact us directly: youngembryologistnetwork@gmail.com

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Greetings and warm welcome to the “Planarian lab @ Oxford”

The lab is based in the Department of Zoology in The Tinbergen Building on South parks Road in the “Land of dreaming spires; Oxford”. Zoology Department in Oxford, has a rich heritage across the biological sciences, including association with three Nobel laureates (Peter Medawar, Niko Tinbergen and Sir John Gurdon). I am a first year DPhil student funded by a generous Clarendon Scholarship working in the lab of Aziz Aboobaker and my DPhil is focused on telomere dynamics and telomerase. We are using this as a way into understanding how many Planarians avoid the ageing process altogether. The lab has ongoing research spanning the areas of stem cell Biology, regeneration and ageing in highly regenerative organisms, like Planarians.

Planarians: A model to study regeneration

In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, biologists including Morgan, Child and many others were drawn to planarian due to their extraordinary capacities for regeneration. One characteristic of planarians, that defines my own research question, was noted by John Graham Dalyell in 1814 “they may almost be called immortal under the edge of knife”. Dalyell was referring to the fact that planarians can continuously regenerate any missing body parts. In 1898 T.H. Morgan reported that a piece 1/279^th size of his original animal was sufficient to produce a complete animal. We can find many examples of animals throughout the phylogenetic tree with different capacities for regeneration, from whole body regeneration (Hydra and Planarians), to specific structures (limb regeneration in Axolotl, fins in Zebrafish) and of course organs, tissues or specialist, cells.

Planarians are bilaterally symmetrical, triploblastic, unsegmented and acoelomate platyhelminthes lacking circulatory, respiratory or skeletal structures and lab animals range in size from 0.5 -0.8 cm (Asexual biotypes) or 1-2 cm ( Sexual biotypes). There are species of land planarian that can be up to a metre long (like Bipallium). The epidermal layer in the ventral surface is ciliated which helps the worm to glide along a mucous trail.

Schmidtea mediterranea (Freshwater Planarian) has a stable diploid genome (8 x 10⁸ bp) and exists in 2 strains. Sexual planarians are hermaphrodites which cross fertilize and asexual animals which have an unbalanced Robertsonian translocation between Chromosome I and III producing an unbalanced karyotype that would prempt successful meiosis. They undergo posterior fission behind the pharyngeal feeding organ and the fissionates regenerate missing structures including a new head to form an entire worm. It takes just 14 days to completely regenerate a whole animal and perfectly rescale all tissues and organs.

Fig 1.  Asexual and Sexual biotype of Schmidtea mediterranea ( Inset: Chromosome distribution of each strain showing a Robertsonian translocation between Chromosome I and III in Asexual strain)

Fig 2.  Basic anatomical features of Schmidtea mediterranea ( Sexual biotype)

Sexuals (Hermaphrodites) cross-fertilize and lays black colored polyembryonic cocoons which are attached to the substratum with a stalk. Each cocoon can produce up to 20 hatchlings (which are not genetically identical), but in the lab we normally get around 5-6 hatchlings from each cocoon. Some planarian species alternate seasonally between sexual and asexual reproduction. In Dugesia ryukyuensis, sexuality can also be induced by feeding sexually matured planarians of another species (Bdellocephala) leading to the development of “acquired sexual worms”.

Fig 3. A mating Sexual pair of Schmidtea ( Inset: Black colored cocoon attached to the substratum with a stalk)

Regeneration in planarians is driven by a large population of proliferating pluripotent stem cells called neoblasts that collectively have an unlimited capacity to fuel regeneration. These neoblasts self-renew and differentiate in a highly coordinated manner to regenerate all the tissues and organs. Amongst the total population of stem cells it has been demonstrated that some are singularly capable of repopulating an entire worm after lethal doses of irradiation.

The lab is particularly interested in understanding how regeneration is controlled at the cellular and molecular level. We are also interested in how and why regenerative processes evolve or are lost over evolutionary time and the relationship of this to the evolution of different reproductive modes (Asexual vs Sexual). To this end we are using a broad comparative approach that encompasses a number of different planarian species.

The different species of planarians with which we work in Oxford include: Schmidtea mediterranea, Girardia tigrina, Dugesia japonica, Polycelis nigra and we have a growing resource of other planarian species with varied regenerative capacities, life histories and adult morphologies for comparative studies of regeneration.

Fig 4. Planarian resource in the lab @ Oxford

The genome of the sexual strain has been sequenced and the genome assembly and various transcriptomic resources are available online. With the recent development of cellular and molecular biology tools it is possible to inhibit gene expression in planarians using RNA interference (RNAi) by microinjecting or feeding bacterially expressed double stranded RNA (dsRNA). As neoblasts are the only proliferating somatic cells in these animals and can be specifically labelled with bromodeoxyuridine (BrDU) and can be sorted away from differentiated cell populations using FACS. Sensitive Whole-mount in situ hybridization (Fluorescent and Colorimetric) has been developed for detecting localization of gene expression patterns.

A typical day in our lab:

A typical lab day might start with preparing Planarian water (1X Montjuic Salt containing Nacl, Cacl2, MgSO4, MgCl2.6H2O, KCL and ddH2O with pH=7) and feeding the planarians raw organic calf liver ( our worm’s delicious food source) and changing the water after feeding ( twice a week). Planarians are kept in an incubator at 20°C. For experiments worms are starved for a week beforehand to standardise conditions as much as possible and to make sure no residual liver is hanging around.

The planarians glide with their ventral cilia and feed on the liver using the highly muscularised pharynx which protrudes in the presence of food. The tip is placed against the food which is sucked up into the gastrovascular cavity using pharyngeal muscles. Water hygiene must be maintained to keep worms healthy and protect them from any unwanted infection. We feed them twice a week to avoid diet induced stress and change our Planarian storage boxes twice a month to keep the worms clean.

Fig 5. Feeding in Planarians.

I collect hatchlings every month from my sexual animals and transfer the worms to a new box. Since I work on telomere maintainence mechanisms in the context of ageing (or lack of ageing), I need to keep an accurate record of their ages, so I know the age of all my worms. I started with just 100 sexuals and at the end of 5 months I have over 2500 Sexuals (with around 900 hatchlings arriving in just 2 weeks over last Christmas, clearly the worms were also in festive mood!).

A typical activity in the lab is to perform RNAi, either by feeding or injection. RNAi takes place over one or two weeks as we perform repeated rounds of injection or feeding. To knock down genes by RNAi in Schmidtea, many planarian labs worldwide are using the RNAi by feeding technique where we mix the dsRNA producing bacteria with the calf liver paste. Feeding based RNAi is less labor intensive and less time consuming than microinjecting in vitro synthesized dsRNA into worms and thus it is widely used. However our observations are that if you really want to know the role of a gene in detail you need to use the microinjection approach as well.

Fig 6. Double Headed Phenotype due to Beta Catenin (RNAi) in Schmidtea mediterranea.

The most exciting part of the lab is everyone works on different aspects of stem cell and regenerative biology which span from ageing to cancer to epigenetics. In fact we are exploring all the planarians we have in our culture room and have even expanded our research to Macrostomum (a free living marine flatworm) and Parhyale (an Amphipod Crustacean also capable of regeneration). The lab organises field trips during the summer to collect and explore new planarian species while we share and talk about all our projects.

If anyone is interested to have a closer look at our work just visit our lab webpage: www.aboobakerlab.com

This post is part of a series on a day in the life of developmental biology labs working on different model organisms. You can read the introduction to the series here and read other posts in this series here.

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