I got the call and immediately said yes. What a thrill to be asked to join the best developmental biology journal there is! Then I talked to some colleagues afterwards and one said “but that’s a LOT of work!!”. Well yes, but it’s worth it. See, Development published my first paper as an independent PI, and it’s the journal that I have probably most read in my career. So I care deeply about it. Plus, being asked to join such an illustrious group of folks, themselves preceded by a pantheon of developmental biologists, how could I say no?
Aside from being honoured by the request, I see this as a mission of sorts. Developmental Biology, as a discipline, and Development as a journal, are vibrant and growing, and rapidly evolving. Indeed, just in the last few months, I’ve eagerly read at least a dozen of papers in Development that have excited and invigorated me. Other journals have recently published some groundbreaking developmental biology papers. The field is alive and strong, and this journal has one of the most important roles in bringing the most exciting discoveries in developmental biology to light.
My personal mission as editor is to bring some of the best and most exciting papers in developmental biology to this journal. My specialty is heart development and more recently stem cell biology and chromatin-based regulation, but I am excited about many aspects of development. The stem cell aspect to developmental biology is one that has recently become very fashionable and is indeed an important and emerging part of our field. In this regard, I am certainly keenly scoping out stem cell-related stories to bring to Development. But I am really mostly very much driven to bring the most interesting and illuminating developmental biology papers to our journal, and get them the broadest possible exposure. For this I need your best work submitted, and your best minds as reviewers! In return I will be keenly selective, but fair and rapid; all the hallmarks that you have come to expect from Development!
I look forward to the many papers I will see come across my desk, and to helping shepherd your best work in Development!
On the 25th and 26th of February 2013 we were invited to attend a joint UK-Japan workshop on Neural Epigenetics at the British Embassy in Tokyo, which aimed to stimulate collaboration between researchers from the two countries. The event was organised by Adrian Moore from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Tokyo, and Adrian Bird from the MRC Cell Biology Institute, Edinburgh. Speakers from the UK and Japan presented their work to an audience of scientists working in the field, which included young Japanese and UK based scientists, and in a further public session to a wider audience facilitated by simultaneous translation between Japanese and English. Attending the workshop was a great opportunity to hear some of the current ideas in epigenetics and to meet some of the researchers in a relaxed environment.
After the meeting we were funded by the British embassy to remain in Japan for a further 10 days to visit Japanese research centres, where we were hosted by Japanese researchers. We visited two of Japans famous RIKEN institutes on our trip, the Brain Science Institute in Tokyo and the Centre for Developmental Biology in Kobe. We were given a tour of their state-of-the-art facilities, where we met with investigators with a wide range of interests who were enthusiastic to discuss their work with us. We also spent some time with international postdocs and students who made us aware of the funding opportunities available for oversees scientists to work at RIKEN institutes. At Kyoto University we met with researchers and were privileged to be shown around the Centre for iPS Cell Research and Application. We also attended the International Student Seminar at Kyoto University where we met many Japanese and international students and heard about their research projects. Whilst in Kyoto we also visited the Medical Science and Brain Science Institutes at Doshisha University where we met with researchers and Phd students.
In addition to the scientific programme, we had a couple of days to explore the cities we visited in Japan. We visited some stunning temples and Zen gardens in Kyoto and experienced the bright lights of Tokyo at night-time. The trip was a fantastic opportunity for us to become familiar with Japan, both it’s scientific infrastructure and it’s rich culture, and we hope that programmes like this will continue to give the same opportunities to other young researchers interested in the working in Japan.
Robert Blassberg and Mina Gouti are postdocs in James Briscoe’s lab at MRC NIMR and Marcus Leiwe is a PhD student in Ian Thompson’s lab at MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London.
Neural Epigenetics Workshop attendees, British Embassy, Tokyo
British and Japanese researchers together at the microscope
If you’re interested in hearing a bit more about the motivation behind setting up the Node, and our impressions on how the project is going, I’d encourage you to read the case study (written by Eva Amsen – the Node’s founding Community Manager, who has recently moved on to pastures new – and Katherine Brown – Development‘s Executive Editor). From our side, the invitation to write this piece provided us with a great opportunity to reflect on the original aims of the Node, and to try and assess the degree to which we’ve achieved those aims. I think we’re doing pretty well and I hope you’ll agree! Of course, the Node is really YOUR site, not ours, and if there’s one thing we’d like you to take away from the case study, that’s it: the Node exists because the community wanted it, and you’re free to post what you think the community would be interested in reading about.
As well as the Node post, I’d really encourage you to take a look at some of the other social media case studies on the SpotOn site – they’re all collected together here, and they cover a huge range of different projects. Some of the projects people have taken on (particularly those doing it in their spare time and with no budget) are pretty impressive, and a definite source of inspiration!
This week, Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM) formally announced the appointment of a new team of academic editors to lead the journal. Ross Cagan, Associate Dean of the Graduate School for Biological Sciences at Mount Sinai Medical Center, succeeds Vivian Siegel as the Editor-in-Chief, and he is joined by Senior Editors Monica Justice, Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine, and George Tidmarsh, Chief Executive Officer at La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company.
Ross, Monica and George describe their interest in and vision for DMM in an inaugural editorial published in the latest issue of the journal. “This is a challenging but also an exciting time for science”, they write. “Our tools are not only more powerful, their level of improvement itself is accelerating. Not surprisingly, we are now trying to imagine how these tools can be applied to disease. What we find remarkable is that the founders of DMM understood these trends years ago.”
Describing some of the obstacles to the translation of biological findings to clinical benefit, they continue: “Many of the failures we have seen in translating novel basic biological discoveries to useful medicines are a result of the inadequacies of the animal models we use at the critical juncture between bench and bedside”. To address these inadequacies and promote future drug development, the team aims to introduce new standards for the rigorous preclinical assessment of animal models of disease.
Another issue raised is the lack of reproducibility of scientific findings, which has been reported in several journals. The new editors argue that negative data can be as informative as positive data when exploring therapeutics, so aim to encourage the publication of useful negative results: “….we will help promote –through our publications – a change in the scientific culture responsible for the asymmetric publication of positive results”.
Vivian Siegel, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has stepped down after four years as Editor-in-Chief. In her farewell editorial, she reflects on the changes that DMM has undergone since launch, including the move to become open-access and, recently, a change in Creative Commons license to further promote access and sharing.
“About a year and a half ago, I agreed to become the Director of Scientific Education and Public Communications at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and realized I would have limited time to devote to DMM, too little to give it what it needs to continue to grow” Vivian writes, explaining her decision to leave DMM. “I encouraged The Company of Biologists to identify academic editors instead of another professional editor to succeed me, as I felt that the journal had now reached an age where its lead editors should be researchers actively engaged in the work covered by the journal.”
DMM is an open-access biomedical journal that publishes research and reviews focusing on the use of model organisms to provide insight into disease mechanisms, diagnostics and therapeutics. Founded in 2008, the journal was the fourth to be launched by the Company of Biologists.
Olivier Pourquie, Nipan Patel, Claudio Stern, John Wallingford, Mary Mullins, Alejandro Sanchez-Alvarado, Andrea Streit, among other will teach, hands-on, the paradigms, problems and technologies of modern Developmental Biology. The course will start with a plenary lecture by Scott Gilbert about the history and concepts in Developmental Biology.
The course will take place in the summer of the south hemisphere (5th to 17th January 2014), in the beautiful fishing village of Quintay, at the Centre for Marine Biological Research (CIMARQ, in Spanish). The best Latin American students in this course will be selected, including a fellowship, to participate at the Embryology course in Woods Hole.
The course is intended for Latin American and non-Latin American applicants. We believe that the interaction between the students will establish links and promote a culture of international collaboration that will further contribute to the field.
Nobel Prize winner Eric Wieschaus discuses about Drosophila genetics with the students of the 2012 International Course on Developmental Biology.
John Gurdon shows how to dissect Xenopus animal cap during the 2012 International Course on Developmental Biology. A few months later John Gurdon got the Nobel Prize.
The Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) is a multidisciplinary center at the University of Cologne providing a forum that brings together physician scientists with basic researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences to perform competitive basic, disease-oriented research. The mission of the CMMC is to advance the understanding of the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms as a prelude to improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment of many common health problems. For further information, please visit http://www.zmmk.uni-koeln.de.
The Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne invites applications of bright and motivated individuals for the Junior Research Group “Developmental Genomics” of Dr. Alvaro Rada-Iglesias.
One full time Post-doctoral fellow
The position is immediately available for 24 months with the possibility of extension. The position is based on the German TV-L salary conditions. The CMMC places strong emphasis on gender equality and seeks to increase the proportional representation of women in this field. Applications from female scientists are especially welcomed; suitably qualified women will be given preferential consideration unless other candidates clearly demonstrate superior qualifications. We also welcome applications from disabled candidates, who will also be given preferential consideration over applicants with comparable qualifications.
What we look for:
The ideal candidate should hold a PhD and demonstrated research experience in developmental biology, preferentially in one or more of the common vertebrate model organisms (mouse, chicken, frog or zebrafish). Experience with routine molecular biology techniques is also required. In addition, candidates with previous experience in stem cell or chromatin biology are also encouraged to apply. We look for highly motivated candidates willing to expand their previous expertise and interests as part of a multidisciplinary and collaborative scientific environment. The successful candidate will receive mentoring and will be given the opportunity to develop his/her own projects in preparation for a future independent career.
Research overview:
During mammalian embryogenesis, cell fates are acquired according to highly defined spatiotemporal patterns, which involves the deployment of cell type specific gene expression patterns as developmental programs unroll. Focusing on the crosstalk between transcription factors and epigenetics, our group aims to better understand the transcriptional regulatory principles that orchestrate the earliest steps of mammalian development. In doing so, our ultimate goal is to characterize the vast non-coding genomic space of the human genome and to investigate how genetic variation within non-coding regulatory elements can contribute to common and congenital human diseases.
In order to gain a global as well as mechanistic understanding of these biological processes, our lab uses a multidisciplinary approach where in vitro (i.e. human and mouse embryonic stem cells) and in vivo developmental models are combined with biochemical and genomic approaches. Please visit http://zmmk-ari.uni-koeln.de/Home.html to learn more about our previous work and interests.
Research environment:
CMMC along with its partner institutes such as the Cologne Cluster of Excellence in Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-associated Diseases, Cologne Center for Genomics and Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing research all located in a same campus provides a vibrant scientific community. Therefore, the CMMC`s JRG in “Developmental Genomics” is placed perfectly at an environment where the basic research meets its cutting edge of translational science.
If you have further questions please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Alvaro Rada-Iglesias: aradaigl@uni-koeln.de
Please forward your complete application including CV, a brief statement of scientific interests and three reference letters (in a single pdf document) until 31.05.2013 by e-mail, quoting the reference number e129 to Dr. Alvaro Rada-Iglesias:aradaigl@uni-koeln.de and in CC. to Dr. Debora Grosskopf-Kroiher (Managing Director, Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne) (zmmk-office@uni-koeln.de).
Last week, I was distracted somewhat by a palaeontology article in Nature: Reisz and colleagues reported their discovery of some fossilised dinosaur embryos. Not exactly relevant to my research, but very cool nonetheless…
The remains that they unearthed in southern China are from the early Jurassic period, almost 200 million years old, and are thought to belong to a Lufengosaurus species. This was a sauropodomorph dinosaur: a group distinguished by their large size, with a very long neck and tail and a small head. The most famous of the sauropodomorphs were probably the Diplodocus species.
These fossils are so unusual, and so informative, because they include embryos at a range of developmental stages. The majority of fossilised dinosaur embryos discovered to date have been single clutches of eggs, all synchronised in their development, which provides only a snapshot of development in that particular species. Finding a whole collection of samples from the same species, but at different stages, gives a rare insight into the dynamics of development in an extinct animal.
The authors focused on the growth of the thigh bone, analysing 24 femurs that ranged in length from 12 to 22 mm. Using sectioning and histological techniques, they showed that these bones were highly vascularised at all stages, so they think that these giant dinosaurs began life with rapid embryonic growth.
They also observed that the dinosaur femurs became thicker on one side as they grew larger, and developed a prominent fourth trochanter (an outgrowth to which the main thigh muscle attaches). In living tetrapods, asymmetrical bone thickening and the growth of skeletal features at muscle attachment sites depends on the muscles being active during embryonic development. This suggests that these ancient embryos also used their muscles to move around inside their eggs, and that these movements were an important part of their development too.
I was really amazed by how much information could be gleaned from these tiny fossilised remains. Geology rocks! In evo-devo, we use observations from extant species to make inferences about their common ancestors, but if palaeontology can provide insights into the embryonic development of extinct animals, it might help us to think about the evolution of some developmental processes from a different, and very interesting perspective.
Reisz, R.R. et al (2013) Embryology of Early Jurassic dinosaur from China with evidence of preserved organic remains, Nature 496: 210-214.
A couple of days ago, the University of Chicago Development, regeneration and stem cell journal club posted their first piece on the Node – a write-up of the discussion they’d had in their recent journal club meeting. It’s a great summary and analysis of a recent Development paper and its context within the field, and I’d encourage you to read it!
This piece marks the first in what we hope will be an irregular series of journal club reports from the Chicago group, and we’d like to find other developmental biology or stem cell journal clubs out there interested in writing for the Node. After all the effort of reading, analysing and discussing a paper for a journal club, we’d like to give you the opportunity of sharing that discussion with a wider community, and not just with your immediate colleagues.
If you’re interested in contributing to this, please get in touch at thenode[at]biologists.com. We’d love to hear from you!
When sculpting evolutionary histories—when telling the stories of change over time—the developmental biologist is often drawn to similarity. She wants to figure out what that last common ancestor was like; what do these extant representatives have in common that illuminates the primitive condition? But a good scientist and theorist also knows to keep her eyes open. In some cases, the differences in two lineages may be just as informative as the similarities when explaining evolutionary trajectories.
For instance, many scientists have sought out the similarities between fish fins and tetrapod limbs. Fins and limbs are homologous structures; the fossil record beautifully illustrates acquisition of limb-type characters and loss of fin rays over evolutionary time as tetrapods evolved from lobe-finned fish ancestors [1]. The lobe-finned fishes and tetrapods together comprise the sister group to the ray-finned fishes. While there are definitely striking similarities in the development of fins and limbs, it turns out that a key difference may allow us to uncover the developmental changes that transformed a fin-like structure to a limb-like structure.
Figure 1- Schematic of the clock model as proposed by Thorogood (1991). (A) The bold arrow represents the timing of the AER-to-AF transition in the developmental process. (B-D) Hypothesized representations of fin/limb development in the clock model (above) with endochondral skeletal patterns of the fin/limb (below,). (B) Fin development in a teleost, demonstrating a short period of time with AER signaling prior to the AER-to-AF transition. (C) Fin development in lobe-finned fishes, showing a longer relative time with AER signaling prior to AF transformation. (D) Limb development in a tetrapod, in which AER signaling persists throughout limb development. Figure modified from Yano et al. [3]; based on Thorogood [2]; with fossil form representations in C-D from Long et al. [4].
Limb Development
The initial steps of limb development are basically identical in fish and tetrapods: a combination of signals in the lateral plate mesoderm creates a limb-forming region where a bulge of mesodermal cells form the first visible sign of a limb, the limb bud. In both fish and tetrapods, a ridge of ectodermal tissue, the apical ectodermal ridge (AER), initially forms at the distal apex of the bud. The AER persists throughout limb outgrowth in tetrapods, acting both to maintain a zone of proliferating mesodermal cells at the distal end of the limb and to provide important patterning signals. In fish, however, the AER is later transformed into a different structure, the apical fold (AF), which is morphologically distinct from the AER.
One model for the evolution of limbs, the clock model (fig. 1), suggests that a heterochronic shift in timing of the AER-to-AF transition may have been the main developmental process driving the fin-to-limb transition [2]. The AF is thought to pattern fin ray outgrowth whereas the AER is thought to regulate endoskeletal patterning and promote endochondral outgrowth.
To make a limb from a fin, one needs to do two important things (among others, of course): lose fin rays and gain well-patterned endochondral elements. A trend of less time with an AF structure, while maintaining the AER for a longer amount of time would produce the limb-type morphology. And in fact, the AER-to-AF transformation occurs relatively early in the ray-finned fishes, at a later time point in lobe-finned fishes, and not at all in the tetrapods.
The basic idea is that ray-finned fish have a limited amount of developmental time spent with an AER, thus the endoskeletal region is relatively short. Then the AF drives the majority of limb outgrowth, resulting in elaborated fin rays. In the lobe-finned fishes, the signals from the AER are maintained for a longer amount of time, resulting in elaboration of the endoskeletal pattern. Subsequent AF formation results in some fin rays. In tetrapods, the AER is maintained through the entirety of limb outgrowth and an AF never forms, resulting in an elongated endoskeleton and a limb with no fin rays (see fig. 1). While this model fits the fossil evidence for the fin-to-limb transition well, little evidence from embryological and developmental studies support this hypothesis. A recent paper in Development sought to change this.
An Exciting Find
Yano et al., [3] described the structure of the AF in detail and investigated the timing of the AER-to-AF transformation in the zebrafish. They found that after AF formation, the majority of pectoral fin outgrowth resulted from growth of the AF region; the endoskeletal region only modestly increases in length. These data support the idea that endoskeletal outgrowth is mainly moderated by the AER; when the AER is no longer around to signal, the endoskeleton grows little. To investigate this further, Yano et al. took advantage of microsurgical techniques in the zebrafish to remove the AF from developing limb buds. Zebrafish have amazing regenerative capabilities and upon removal of the AF the endoskeletal region slightly increased in length and an AER was regenerated within six hours. The surgically manipulated fin then underwent the normal AER-to-AF transformation and outgrowth proceeded normally.
Figure 2 – Repeated apical fold removal caused excessive elongation of the endoskeletal region compared to control (non-removal) fin. Zebrafish larva (7 days post-fertilization) after AF removal was performed three times on the left side pectoral fin bud; right side is control fin. Black brackets indicate the endoskeletal region. Scale bar: 200µm. From Yano et al., [3].This slight extension of the endoskeletal elements may mean that prolonged AER-exposure leads to elongation of the endoskeleton. Repeated removal of the AF exposed the endoskeletal mesoderm to the AER for a longer amount of time, imitating a delay in the AER-to-AF transition. In support of the clock model, after three removals of the AF, the endoskeletal elements of the removal fin were elongated distally compared to fin on the control side (Fig. 2) Furthermore, there was an abundance of proliferating cells at the distal edge of the removal fin after AER exposure compared to the control fin, suggesting the maintained AER exposure promotes proliferation and outgrowth.
When these fish completed limb development, the endoskeletal region of the removal fin was altered, losing some normal fin bones and in some cases gaining structures distally. These alterations can be interpreted to be more limb-like, but much more work should be done characterizing these phenotypes to make such a claim. Even so, these data do suggest that exposure to AER signaling controls the outgrowth and morphology of the endoskeleton. The AER-to-AF transition might indeed restrict the growth and shape of the endoskeletal region.
This study is a great example of evolutionary developmental biology designed to experimentally test a proposed model. The clock model rests on the assumption that the AER and AF have different functions patterning distinct morphological structures. This paper demonstrated different skeletal morphologies for fins exposed only to endogenous AER signals versus those exposed to the AER for a longer amount of time, lending embryological support to the clock model. We may not be able to literally turn back time to examine the common ancestor, but by experimentally “manipulating the clock” we may be able to get a pretty good idea as to how extant representatives gained their characteristic limb features. Read the paper here.
WORKS CITED
1. Coates, M.I. (1994). The origin of vertebrate limbs. Dev Suppl, 169-180.
2. Thorogood, P. (1991). The development of the teleost fin and implications for our understanding of tetrapod limb evolution. In Developmental patterning of the vertebrate limb. Springer, pp. 347-354.
3. Yano, T., Abe, G., Yokoyama, H., Kawakami, K., and Tamura, K. (2012). Mechanism of pectoral fin outgrowth in zebrafish development. Development 139, 2916-2925.
4. Long, J.A., Young, G.C., Holland, T., Senden, T.J., and Fitzgerald, E.M. (2006). An exceptional Devonian fish from Australia sheds light on tetrapod origins. Nature 444, 199-202.
This post results from the discussion of Yano et al., 2012 by the Development, Regeneration, and Stem Cell Biology Journal Club at the University of Chicago. It was authored by Haley K. Stinnett, Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637.
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![Figure 1 Schematic of the clock model as proposed by Thorogood (1991). (A) The bold arrow represents the timing of the AER-to-AF transition in the developmental process. (B-D) Hypothesized representations of fin/limb development in the clock model (above) with endochondral skeletal patterns of the fin/limb (below,). (B) Fin development in a teleost, demonstrating a short period of time with AER signaling prior to the AER-to-AF transition. (C) Fin development in lobe-finned fishes, showing a longer relative time with AER signaling prior to AF transformation. (D) Limb development in a tetrapod, in which AER signaling persists throughout limb development. Figure modified from Yano et al. [3]; based on Thorogood [2]; with fossil form representations in C-D from Long et al. [4].](https://thenode.biologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/node1.png)
![Figure 2 - Repeated apical fold removal caused excessive elongation of the endoskeletal region compared to control (non-removal) fin. Zebrafish larva (7 days post-fertilization) after AF removal was performed three times on the left side pectoral fin bud; right side is control fin. Black brackets indicate the endoskeletal region. Scale bar: 200µm. From Yano et al., [3].](https://thenode.biologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/node2.png)