June saw a lot of interesting posts on the Node! Meeting reports, research posts, and more, as well as few new jobs in our jobs page. Here are some of the highlights:

Meeting reports

Several meetings were covered on the Node this month:

• – Harry attended the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) annual meeting in Boston, and posted a series of reports on the meeting
• – The Node was at the International Society of Development Biology (ISDB) in Cancun, and posted daily updates.
• – Rachael attended the satellite symposium on left-right asymmetry that preceded the ISDB, and wrote a post on her highlights.

Research Highlights

– Kif Liakath-Ali highlighted two recent papers that used insects as an inspiration to develop new technologies.

– Cantas discussed his recent paper on the formation of the primitive streak and the induction of mesoderm.

– And Albert described how he applied the brainbow technique to zebrafish.

Woods Hole embryology course

This year’s Woods Hole embryology course is underway, and Lara wrote a post about her impressions on the first few weeks of the course. We also had another round of beautiful images from last year’s course up for voting, and the big winner this time was a skeleton preparation of a pig embryo. This winning image will feature in the cover of Development in a coming issue.

Also on the Node: 

– Kara wrote a personal account of how she returned to the bench after working as a journal editor, showing that leaving academia doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t come back.

– And Erin’s stem cell image blog focused on a recent paper on retinal regeneration.

Happy Reading!

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Just before the ISDB meeting in Mexico, over a hundred researchers gathered for a satellite symposium on the development of left-right asymmetry. Although the external body plans of vertebrates (and many invertebrates) are bilaterally symmetrical, various internal organs are positioned asymmetrically. For example, the heart is located towards the left, but paired organs such as the lungs are also asymmetrical, as the left lung has fewer lobes than the right in order to make space for the heart on that side of the body. Correct development of the left-right axis is vital for all organs to be packaged properly within the body cavity, so left-right defects often have disease implications.

The symposium began by looking at left-right patterning in some of our more distant relatives: flies, nematodes, polychaete worms, limpets, sea squirts and sea urchins.

Bill Wood used a nice visualisation to describe left-right asymmetry in the early C. elegans embryo, telling us to imagine the one-cell embryo as a cylinder with the M.C. Escher artwork ‘Bird Fish’ wrapped around it. As the embryo prepares for its first cell division into anterior and posterior cells, there is an off-axis deformation of the cortical network that stretches the birds and fish so that they are longer and thinner on one side of the cylinder. This means that the birds and fish on the other side are pulled in the opposite direction and become shorter and fatter, creating a difference between the future left and right sides of the body during the very first cell division. ‘Bird Fish’ seemed an appropriate choice of pattern to demonstrate this point as the model organisms representing these two groups, chick and zebrafish, use very different mechanisms to establish left-right asymmetry and would be discussed later in the meeting…

We then moved on to vertebrate systems with talks describing the events taking place at the node of mouse and its analogous structures in other animals, where motile cilia generate leftward fluid flow. Dominic Norris proposed a mechanism for the detection of this flow, which initiates a Nodal signal on the left side of the body, while Chris Wright and Jose Antonio Belo talked about the dynamics of Nodal ligands and antagonists, respectively.

A recurrent debate was the role of early determinants of asymmetry, and how these might work with the cilia-mediated mechanism seen in many, but not all vertebrates. Martin Blum proposed a model to accommodate both processes and discussed their possible evolutionary relationships. The frequently mentioned ‘problem’ with a cilia-based strategy is that some animals establish the left-right axis without cilia, such as the chick. Leonor Saude described the asymmetry created by the leftward movement of cells around Hensen’s node and the termination of this process by a cell adhesion mechanism.

The early differences between the left and right sides of the body must be translated into an effect on organogenesis later in development. This was addressed by Rebecca Burdine who showed that the Nodal signal increases cell movement on the left side of the zebrafish heart tube to facilitate its leftward jog, and Nanette Nascone-Yoder who has been investigating the role of the left-specific transcription factor Pitx2 in asymmetric gut curvature in frogs.

Even organs that appear symmetrical in their gross morphology can be asymmetrical; the brain exhibits many functional asymmetries. Steve Wilson has utilised the optical clarity of zebrafish to visualise asymmetric connections in the brain and asymmetric activity in response to stimuli, while Marnie Halpern described some ways in which reversed brain asymmetry can affect fish behaviour.

In contrast to the talks on asymmetry, Olivier Pourquie explained how symmetrical structures such as the somites overcome the differences between the left and right sides of the body to maintain their symmetry during development.

The medical relevance of left-right axis development was summed up by talks on diseases associated with asymmetry defects; Cecilia Lo described her work on congenital heart disease and Zhaoxia Sun spoke about primary ciliary dyskinesia. Research into left-right asymmetry has even inspired a recent article in the New York Times, so a developmental process that has fascinated scientists for decades has infiltrated popular culture too – it must be important!

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Another set of beautiful images, and another great winner! The winner of this year’s 3rd round of the Woods Hole Embryology Course is the pig embryo!

This great picture was taken by Marina Venero Galanternik (University of Utah), Rodrigo G. Arzate-Mejía (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico), Jennifer McKey (Universite Montpellier) and William Munoz (The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center). It shows a colour inverted image of a skeleton preparation of a pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) embryo.

The runners-up to this competition were the Drosophila embryos by Davon Callander (Oregon State University); a fluorescently stained annelid by Eduardo Zattara (University of Maryland, College Park); and a grafted Xenopus by Elsie Place (MRC National Institute of Medical Research).

This beautiful pig embryo will feature in the cover of Development in a coming issue. As for the cover competition, there is still one round of beautiful pictures to come this year!

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We’ve all heard the aphorism that once you leave academia, you can’t go back. A little over two years ago, I wrote about my transition from academic research to scientific editing. Now, after completing my first year as an assistant professor of Biology at Reed College, I’m offering proof that lane changes, U-turns, and detours can lead you back to the ivory tower. Many people suggested that I wouldn’t be able to come back to academia when I chose to accept an editorial job at Cell, and I had every intention of sticking with my chosen path of scientific editing. After almost a year of sitting at a desk in an office that didn’t smell like acetic acid or freshly poured LB agar, a niggling feeling kept telling me that something wasn’t quite right. A few soul-searching diary entries, a couple of personality type indicators, and many conversations with friends and mentors helped me discern exactly what that feeling was trying to tell me. Scientific careers can follow many different trajectories and sometimes the “best fit” path is not always the easiest or most logical choice.

It is my hope that sharing my journey thus far helps scientists at all stages of their careers recognize that many valid career paths exist and that lane changes, U-turns, and detours are always possible. And I hope that this piece will spark conversation, here and elsewhere, about the varied and multiple careers scientists pursue.

The exit ramp
When I made the decision to leave my post-doc for the position at Cell, I focused on what the job offered: the ability to do more of what I liked – thinking and communicating science – and less of what I didn’t like – worrying about funding and dealing with the pressure to publish in high-impact journals. (The irony of working at a high-impact journal was not lost on me.) Plus the editorial job put me in the same time zone as the rest of my family. It was a logical and rational decision.

The novelty of scientific editing excited me in a way that my day-to-day work as a post-doc didn’t and, as a result, I disregarded the things that I actually enjoyed about working in academia, like the experimental troubleshooting, the microscopy, the competition to figure something out before someone else, the pipetting, the interactions with students. Working as an editor helped me hone my critical thinking skills, gave me a strong foundation in written communication, and also helped me clarify who I was, what I wanted, and what I valued. I need to make (or at least feel like I’m making) unique and creative contributions to science.

Lost without a map
In an era of tight funding and high-stakes research, my decision to leave a very good and relatively secure job for one fraught with stress and insecurity might seem a little odd, and certainly not very practical. It is, in fact, one of the least rational decisions I’ve made. And although we scientists are often known for our logic and careful reasoning, many of us are intuitive thinkers, making decisions based, at least partly, on gut instinct. This is not to say that I did not enjoy my time as an editor, because I did. I count myself incredibly fortunate to have worked as a scientific editor at Cell, and had my academic job search been unsuccessful, I’d still be handling manuscripts, recruiting papers, talking with authors, attending meetings as an editor, and savoring the opportunity to read papers and work with really smart people.

The U-turn…
Applying for assistant professorships while also working as a full-time editor forced me to focus on exactly what I wanted. While many of my post-doc friends and colleagues indiscriminately applied to 30 or 40 positions, I applied to seven. I was mindful of location (after living in a variety of places up and down the East Coast and in London, my husband and I wanted a place that had plenty of green space and the option to cycle and walk most places). I knew from multiple experiences that I wanted to work directly with undergraduate students and maintain a small, active research program. My weekends were dedicated to outlining my tentative research program and customizing my application materials for each position on my list. My scientific “U-turn” was possible, in large part, because of an incredibly generous post-doc mentor (Steve Wilson at UCL) who allowed me to resume some of the projects I’d left behind and use them as a jumping off point for my long-term research program.

The new path…
I’m not quite sure what the various search committees saw in my application, but I was extremely fortunate to have two fantastic offers to teach and do research at top-notch liberal arts schools. I love my current job at Reed College. My experiences as a high school science teacher (before grad school) and a scientific editor (before this position) endowed me with a unique and useful skillset. As a professor at small liberal arts college, I relish designing both curriculum and experiments. I enjoy reading, writing, and inviting notable scientist for seminars. I impact the future of science by teaching and mentoring undergraduates in my lab. I’ve embraced the academic lifestyle. And although our recently adopted dog, Mickey, would like to think his need for a run is what gets me up bright and early ~5am, it’s really the opportunity to share my love of research, encourage students to explore and experiment, and mentor budding scientists that get me out of bed every morning. The life of an assistant biology professor at a place like Reed can be incredibly rewarding, but it also comes with a healthy dose of stress. Fear of delivering a subpar lecture, apprehension about lab activities not working, and anxiety about my nascent research program certainly gave me some grey hairs. That said, I wouldn’t have traded this past year for anything (well, maybe more sleep). I’ve never learned as much, slept as little, worried as much, or felt as happy as I have this past year. And I wouldn’t have survived this year without the stress relief and support that my dog, husband, wonderful colleagues, mentors, and friends provided.

Even if Reed isn’t my final academic home, my journey so far has taught me to seize the opportunities that come my way, to learn and live as fully as I possibly can. And I hope that this one example of leaving and returning to academia gives you the courage to search for the career path that is right for you.

What are your experiences? Have you found your “dream job”? What have you learned from taking one of the less mainstream career paths? Please post here to continue this exploration of career trajectories.

(46 votes)

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We invite applications for a postdoctoral research fellow to join the lab of “Imaging and Regulation of Morphogenesis in Higher Vertebrates” at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Our lab is interested in understanding the  morphogenesis of developing structures, at a cellular level. Using avian models we combine state-of-the-art live imaging methodologies, quantitative analyses, biophysical, cellular and molecular biology approaches to access the cellular dynamics of development.

This specific project aims at elucidating the cellular events underlying the initiation of limb bud formation and how such cell events are dynamically regulated at the molecular level. For more information about projects and the lab please visit: www.jgroslab.com .
The position is a two-year postdoctoral position funded by the FRM (Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale) available immediately, although the starting date is flexible. We are seeking highly motivated candidates with expertise in developmental and/or cellular biology. Experience in imaging will be positively considered.

The Pasteur Institute, located in the vibrant city of Paris, has a longstanding history of excellence in developmental biology and in science in general, with access to excellent core facilities.

Applicants should send a cover letter (describing briefly research interests), a C.V and contact information for up to 3 academic references to jgros@pasteur.fr.

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After two weeks of intense work in the Woods Hole MBL Embryology course, I am beginning to understand why this course compels TAs, faculty and students from around the world to return year after year. The 24 students in the 2013 Embryology class work on a diverse set of organisms including worms, mice, chick, coral, dinosaurs, and lophotrochozoans, but we are tied together by our interest in development.

Our desire to understand development brought us to this six-week course featuring daily lectures, discussion and many hours of work in the lab with a variety of model systems. It is intense work, but at the same time, it’s all play. In the last two weeks together, we’ve studied how sea urchin, nematode, and arthropod eggs turn into swimming or crawling larvae. Adding sea urchin eggs and sperm together, we watched the vitelline envelope balloon indicating fertilization. Timelapse movies captured cell divisions, gastrulation, filopodial dynamics, and organ development. With confocal microscopes, we examined localization of proteins and RNAs to understand patterning and created 3D reconstructions of embryos.

The most striking thing to me about the MBL has been not the plethora of embryos or the microscopes, but the community of scientists it builds. The course directors and many of the speakers were students of the course, with stories and fond recollections. The faculty, course directors, and TAs worked with us all day and most of the night, troubleshooting microscopes or antibody staining and providing a wealth of experience and knowledge. As a student, I have the privilege of being a part of this community, working where many scientists, including T. H. Morgan, did their summer research. Much of the rich heritage of the MBL is showcased in the WHOI library rare books room, which features Morgan’s traveling microscope, multiple Nobel prizes, and scientific texts dating back to the 1500’s.

Our time at Woods Hole so far has already changed how we look at the world. You approach murky seawater with fascination, because you will find fish and snail embryos. I look at my research with a broader perspective and am excited to discover unexpected connections between my work and my classmates’ research.  You are confident enough to tackle new techniques and ask questions boldly; to gain experience through work and interactions with faculty. I can’t wait to see what the next four weeks hold.

(7 votes)

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Mouse Molecular Genetics
18-21 September 2013
Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK
Abstract and Bursary deadline: 19 July | Registration deadline: 7 August

We are pleased to announce that the 26th annual Mouse Molecular Genetics meeting will be held at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, from 18 to 21 September 2013.
This meeting is a leading forum for researchers who apply genetics and genomics techniques to address fundamental issues in mammalian biology, including stem cell biology, development, epigenetics and models of human disease.

The meeting invites leaders in these areas to present unpublished research findings, encourages junior investigators to participate in oral and poster presentations and provides a stimulating environment for the exchange of ideas. The programme will showcase the latest technical developments in genetics and engineering of the mouse genome and this year will also feature a new session devoted to cancer. We welcome abstracts from areas relevant to mammalian molecular genetics, several oral presentations be selected from submitted abstracts.

Scientific programme committee
Allan Bradley, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK
Kat Hadjantonakis, Sloan-Kettering Institute, USA
Yumiko Saga, National Institute of Genetics, Japan
Philippe Soriano, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, USA

Keynote speaker
Margaret Buckingham, The Institut Pasteur, France

Rosa Beddington Lecture
Robin Lovell-Badge, Medical Research Council, UK

Invited speakers Wendy Bickmore, University of Edinburgh, UK Thijn Brummelkamp, Netherlands Cancer Institute, The Netherlands
Elaine Dzierzak, Erasmus Stem Cell Institute, The Netherlands Anne Grapin-Botton, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Yann Herault, Centre de Recherche en Biologie and Medecine, France
Jos Jonkers, Netherlands Cancer Institute, The Netherlands Ryoichiro Kageyama, Kyoto University, Japan Haruhiko Koseki, Riken, Japan
Jinsong Li, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, China Heiko Lickert, Institute of Stem Cell Research, Germany Roland Rad, Technische Universität München, Germany Nadia Rosenthal, Imperial College London, UK Shankar Srinivas, University of Oxford, UK Azim Surani, University of Cambridge, UK Feng Zang, Broad Institute of MIT, USA

Topics will include: Organogenesis Technology Stem cells and germ cells Patterning Genetics and genomics Human disease Epigenetics Cancer

For further information and to register: https://registration.hinxton.wellcome.ac.uk/display_info.asp?id=372

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The last day of the ISDB saw also the last plenary session. One of the highlights of this session was also a talk by Patricia Delgado. Patricia works on the molecular and evolutionary basis of butterfly wing patterning. Her talk included beautiful pictures of butterflies, including an image (not from her lab) of the alphabet written on naturally occurring butterfly wing patterns.

There were two more concurrent sessions, before a few free hours in the afternoon. This being the last day in Cancun, and such a sunny day as well, conference attendees could probably be spotted in every pool/beach in Cancun! Everyone was then back to the conference center for the conference dinner. But a surprise expected us: by the entrance were three actors dressed in quite impressive mayan-inspired outfits! It became the thing to do, to take photos with them. Not even Nobel prize winners were immune, as Martin Chalfie was spotted posing!

Conference attendees posing for photographs with mayans

The conference dinner then took place, and included the poster prize award ceremony. With three different organisations giving prizes, a lot of the students and postdocs saw their work recognized at this meeting. As is the tradition here on the Node, the winner of the poster prize at the BSDB, Aditya Saxena (who we interviewed a few weeks ago) interviewed the winner of the SDB poster prize, Kara Nordin- so look out for this interview here on the Node soon! The band then took over, and the combination of alcohol and music had the effect that it always has- a lot of scientists on the dance floor!

Although it is sad to see the end of this meeting, and leave the sunny Cancun, there is definitely something to look forward to: it was announced today that the next ISDB meeting in four years time will take place in Singapore, where the new ISDB president, Phil Ingham, is based. It seems that developmental biologists know how to choose good locations to hold their meetings!

The successful Singapore bid to host the nest ISDB meeting

The Node was at the ISDB in Cancun, and we posted daily reports. In addition to this post you can read the report of day 1, day 2, day 3 and day 4.

(3 votes)

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Today was the day when the excellent work of many developmental biologists was recognized by the community. The first prize to be awarded was the brand new Latin American Society of Developmental Biology prize. The winner, Roberto Mayor, was awarded this prize not only for his excellent body of work on neural crest cells, but also his efforts in promoting developmental biology in Latin America- he was the founder and first president of the LASDB, and is still very much involved, running for example, an embryology course in Chile every year. The actual prize was a beautiful and unique art piece by a Brazilian artist- a very special prize indeed. On a lighter note, Roberto Mayor also received an additional prize. Marianne Bronner awarded him a more comical gift, from all the neural crest scientists who are not fortunate enough to work, like him, in the more tractable Xenopus. Roberto then delighted the audience with a great talk on the mechanisms at work in neural crest migration.

The two prizes received by Roberto Mayor. Any guesses on which one was the official prize?

Marianne Bronner was herself the receiver of an award today- the Conklin Medal awarded by the SDB to recognize her work. She very sweetly thanked her current and previous lab members (her ‘progeny’ as she calls them) for their hard work that made it all possible, and for having contributed for her nomination to the award. We interviewed Marianne today, so look out for the interview on the Node soon. Other awardees included Bill Wood, who was awarded the Victor Hamburger Outsanding Educator Prize, for his many contributions to the way science is taught (or should be taught) in the lecture room. Another awardee was John Fallon, who received a SDB Lifetime Achievement Award for his body of work on limb development.

Marianne Bronner gives her Conklin Medal Prize lecture

But the conference was not only awards. There were of course more concurrent sessions, covering a range of topics: from how environmental factors can influence development to cell shape and the cytoskeleton. At the evening poster session a rumour started going around that turtles could be spotted by the beach. And we must confess that we did go for a night walk on the beach, and that we could observe turtles laying their eggs. And even if a beach at the back of a strip of hotels cannot be really considered their natural habitat, after so many talks using turtles as subjects of study it was nice to see these beautiful animals in the ‘wild’!

The Node is at the ISDB in Cancun, and we are posting daily reports. In addition to this post you can read the report of day 1, day 2 and day 3.

(2 votes)

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Day 3 of the ISDB was really only half a day, with the only free afternoon/evening in the intense meeting program.

The first part of the morning featured two parallel sessions. One of the sessions was a roundtable discussion on how to succeed in science, and included a panel of very successful developmental biologists, sharing their advice and experience. The Node, however, attended the other session, an Education symposium sponsored by the SDB. It included a series of talks by different scientists who teach developmental biology to undergraduates, providing case studies and suggestions on how to engage students and effectively teach developmental biology concepts. One of the highlights of this session included the case study of Michael Barresi, who developed a semester-long practical class in which students learnt about embryonic development by testing the effects of crude oil in zebrafish development. Different students conducted proper scientific research on the effects on different aspects of development, and presented their results in a scientific symposium-style gathering at the end of the course. Some of the most enthusiastic students even continued the work during the summer, culminating with the publication of a paper. According with Michael Barresi, students cared about this project for two reasons: first, because they were conducting proper scientific research, and second because the project focused on a very topical issue that the students could relate to and feel engaged with (the big Gulf of Mexico oil spill had happened very recently before this course took place).

Indeed, the importance of teaching basic developmental biological concepts alongside real world, topical contextualisation of the importance of these studies, was a point stressed in this session. If the students care about it, they will be interested. Other useful suggestions included the use of texting, twitter or simple cards with A, B, C and D on them to ask questions to the whole class during lectures, making lectures dynamic and the students more engaged.

Following the education symposium there were several concurrent sessions, and the Node chose a session on emerging model organisms. One of the highlights of this session was a talk by Shigeru Kuratani, on the evolution of turtle body plans. His talk included some incredibly useful (and professional looking!) animations, which showed great 3D representations of the bones and muscles being studied, and how they are arranged in different organisms across evolution. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and indeed it should not be underestimated how they can help understand complex scientific concepts. Another highlight from this session was Nanette Nascone-Yoder, who introduced the audience to the Budgett’s frog. The audience reacted both to the potentially useful properties of this animal for developmental biology studies (e.g. fast development rates, and big embryo size), but also to some more creepy features, such as how bigger tadpoles often eat their smaller siblings!

Not a Budgett’s frog… but this little fellow has been spotted at a poster, alongside a QR code linking to more poster images!

During the afternoon off the Node was not resting- we have been interviewing some great scientists during this ISDB meeting, and the interviews will be posted on the Node in the near future. As for tomorrow… another full day of science ahead of us!

The Node is at the ISDB in Cancun, and we are posting daily reports. In addition to this post you can read the report of day 1 and of day 2.

(3 votes)

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