Department: Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge, CB2 1QR

Based at: Anne McLaren Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine, University of Cambridge, West Forvie Building, Robinson Way, Cambridge, CB2 0SZ

Salary: £27,854-£36,298 pa

Closing Date: 9th June 2013

Fixed Term: Funds for this post are available until 30th June 2017 in the first instance

The Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (SCI) comprises 200 researchers spanning fundamental science through to clinical applications. Our goal is to advance disease modelling, drug discovery and regenerative medicine through understanding the genetic and biochemical mechanisms that control stem cell fate.

We are seeking an enthusiastic and highly motivated person to join the Anne McLaren Laboratory for Regenerative Medicine at the Biomedical Research Campus (Addenbrooke’s Hospital).  As the senior member of assistant staff, you will provide technical and administrative support to the Head of Translation Medicine; the main duties will include the procurement and maintenance of equipment and the implementation and compliance with Health and Safety at work legislation within the Laboratory. Prior experience in research environment is essential, experience in operating and maintaining highly specialist microscopy and flow cytometry is desirable.

The role holder will be responsible for the line management of the support staff and provide solutions as they arise.  You will provide clear leadership to the support team and have the ability to deal sympathetically and effectively with a wide range of people and issues, with excellent interpersonal and communication skills. Educated to degree level, candidates will need to have a friendly and positive manner and enjoy working with a range of people.

You will liaise with the SCI Principal Assistant when procuring high value equipment and consumables and liaise with the Central Biomedical Resource staff who are responsible for the buildings maintenance, safety and security of the building and its infrastructural equipment.  This role will require a high level of organisation, ability to communicate and motivate others excellent IT skills and competence in using Microsoft Office.  At times you may be required to work alone, or as part of a team, managing their own day-to-day workload.

To apply, please visit our vacancies webpage: http://www.stemcells.cam.ac.uk/careers-study/vacancies/

Informal enquiries are also welcome via email: cscrjobs@cscr.cam.ac.uk

Applications must be submitted by 17:00 on the closing date 9th June 2013.

Interviews will be held on Tuesday 25^th June 2013. If you have not been invited for interview by 21^st June 2013, you have not been successful on this occasion.

Please quote reference PS01219 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.

The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK.

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Back in February, you voted on the first set of beautiful images taken by last year’s Woods Hole Embryology Course students, and this confocal picture of a mouse embryo appeared on the cover of Development last month. Now it’s time for the next round: please vote in the poll below for which of the following four images you would like to see on a future cover of the journal. To see bigger versions, just click on the image.

Voting closes noon GMT on May 21st

1. Confocal image (extended focus Z stack) of a Crepidula fornicata (slipper limpet) veliger larva. Stained with phalloidin (F-actin; purple), DAPI (cell nuclei, blue), anti-serotonin (yellow), and anti-acetylated tubulin (red). The shell (green) image was created from the DIC picture collected during the confocal scan. The C-shaped line of nuclei are cells at the edge of the velum; the acetylated tubulin (red) staining reveals the ciliated surface of the velum. The F-actin staining (purple) highlights the main larval retractor muscle. Serotonin (yellow) reveals the serotonergic neuron cell bodies and axons. This image was taken by Joyce Pieretti (University of Chicago), Manuela Truebano (Plymouth University), Saori Tani (Kobe University) and Daniela Di Bella (Fundacion Instituto Leloir).

2. Embryo of the dwarf cuttlefish, Sepia bandensis, stained with phalloidin (F-actin; green), DAPI (nuclei, blue), and anti Pax 3/7 (MAb DP312, red). The developing cuttlebone (purple) and eyes (yellow) were rendered using the DIC image collected during the confocal scan. The F-actin staining (green) reveals the developing musculature and brain, while Pax 3/7 (red) is expressed in a subset of neurons in the brain as well as two patches of epithelia in the mantle and portions of the arms and tentacles. The cuttlebone (purple) is a chambered, gas-filled internal shell made of aragonite that provides buoyancy control. Within each eye (yellow), the developing lens is seen as an internal sphere. Seven of the eight arms are visible along with the two tentacles that have sucker-covered ends. This image was taken by Maggie Rigney (University of Texas, Austin) and Nipam Patel (University of California).

3. The planarian, Dugesia sanchezi, immunostained for acetylated tubulin (green) and phospho-histone-H3 (dividing cells, purple). This individual has regenerated two heads. This image was taken by Chang Liu (Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology).

4. Juvenile of the Longfin inshore squid, Loligo pealei, stained with anti-acetylated tubulin (green), phalloidin (F-actin, red), and Hoechst (nuclei, blue). The F-actin staining (red) reveals the musculature of the mantle; and the acetylated-tubulin staining (green) reveals the tufts of cilia on the surface of the mantle and rest of the body. This image was taken by Wang Chi Lau (Chinese University of Hong Kong).

(9 votes)

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Again, things have been busy on the Node this month and, as well as the usual flurry of job adverts, we’ve had some great research- and meeting-based posts.

Below are just some of the highlights. Remember – it’s easy to post on the Node, so feel free to get in touch (or simply post away!) if you have any developmental biology-related news, events or discussions that you’d like to share with the community.

Stem Cells Image Competition

The results of the competition were finally announced. Thanks to all of you who’ve submitted images and/or voted. Congratulations again to Lulu Xing of the University of Melbourne. Lulu’s  winning image (“The Garden of Memory”) will be appearing on a cover of Development in the coming weeks.

Research highlights

– We had our first “Journal Club on the Node” post – thanks to the University of Chicago Development, Regeneration and Stem Cell Journal Club for sharing their discussion with us. We look forward to seeing many more of these journal clubs – from U. Chicago and any other journals clubs that are interested – on the Node in the future.

– Patricia Gongal highlighted a recent Nature paper that used a clever approach to visualize retinoic acid gradients.

– Rachael Inglis highlighted a recent report of the discovery of some fossilised dinosaur embryos.

Journal/publishing news

– Our new Editor, Benoit Bruneau, explained why he’s so excited to be joining the journal.

– One of Development’s sister journals, Disease Models and Mechanisms (DMM), announced the appointment of a new team of academic editors.

– SpotOn, Nature Publishing Group’s online forum for science policy, outreach and tools, featured the Node as a case study for using social media in science.

News from meetings and conferences

– Continuing with the reports from the BSDB/BSCB Joint Spring Meeting, Andrei Luchici summarised Day 1 at the meeting. 

– Steff Knappe also painted an overview of some of the topics covered at the BSDB/BSCB meeting. You can also see the earlier report from Steff on the Careers Workshop.

– Robert Blassberg reported back from his recent trip to Japan during which time he attended the joint UK-Japan workshop on Neural Epigenetics, held at the British Embassy in Tokyo.

– If you’re interested in attending a hands-on dev biol course, read more about the upcoming International Course on Developmental Biology.

 Happy reading!

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Here are the highlights from the current issue of Development:

In-cyst-ing on germ cell development

During gametogenesis in many organisms, germ cells undergo synchronous, incomplete divisions just before meiosis that generate interconnected cell groups known as cysts, but does a cyst stage always occur during mammalian gametogenesis? Here (p. 2075), by lineage marking the progeny of primordial germ cells (PGCs) in embryonic mouse gonads, Lei Lei and Allan Spradling show that mouse PGCs initially develop into cysts containing two, four or eight cells. In female gonads, these cysts fragment into smaller cysts that associate with the cysts of unrelated progenitors. Interestingly, the number of female cysts per PGC at the time of meiotic entry corresponds closely with the number of primordial follicles produced by each progenitor, which suggests that cyst fragmentation determines the number of oocytes and possibly also their quality. Male cyst cells also break apart, the researchers report, which amplifies the number of spermatogonial stem cells. Together, these results indicate that cyst formation and cyst fragmentation are fundamental stages in the development of male and female mouse gametes.

Meiotic progression, ETC

During mitosis, ubiquitylation of the anaphase inhibitor securin by the E3 ligase anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) targets securin for proteolysis, which triggers sister chromatid separation. Securin is also implicated in meiotic progression. Thus, during both mitosis and meiosis, securin expression must be tightly regulated to enable its timely action. On p. 2149, Risa Kitagawa and co-workers investigate the mechanism underlying this regulation by analysing the subcellular localisation of the securin IFY-1 during C. elegans development. IFY-1 expression is high in the cytoplasm of germ cells, they report, but declines following meiosis I, and remains low during meiosis II and following mitoses. The researchers identify the HECT-E3 ligase ETC-1 as a regulator of the cytoplasmic levels of IFY-1 and CYB-1 (cyclin B1), and show that ETC-1 ubiquitylates IFY-1 and CYB-1 in vitro in the presence of the E2 enzyme UBC-18. These and other data suggest that a novel mechanism, mediated by ETC-1, cooperates with APC/C to regulate the timing of meiosis during germ cell development in C. elegans.

Tentacles illuminate appendage evolution

Evolution of the capacity to form appendages (secondary outgrowths from the principal embryonic axes) potentiated the diversification of animal body plans. The basic mechanisms that underlie appendage growth in bilaterian model systems have been identified but little is known about appendage development in pre-bilaterians. Now, on p. 2212, Matthew Gibson and colleagues report that three processes contribute to tentacle development in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. The initial step in tentacle development in this early-branching metazoan, they report, is the formation of a thickened ectodermal placode at the oral pole that progressively divides into four distinct tentacle domains, probably through the restricted expression of key effector genes. Next, Notch signalling triggers apicobasal thinning of the tentacular ectoderm, which drives the elongation of these primordia. Concomitantly, oriented cell rearrangements help to shape the elongating tentacles. By defining the mechanism of embryonic appendage development in an early-branching metazoan, these findings provide a foundation for understanding the evolutionary diversification of animal body plans.

Ephrin B1 sticks up for developing brain

The apical membrane of apical progenitors (APs) in the developing mammalian cortex is involved in cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) adhesion events that maintain the integrity of the developing neuroepithelium. Apical adhesion is important for several aspects of neural development but its regulation is poorly understood. Here (p. 2082), Alice Davy and colleagues investigate the function of ephrin B1, a cell-surface protein that activates cellular signalling on binding ephrin receptors (via reverse signalling), in the morphogenesis of the developing mouse cortex. The researchers report that some Efnb1-deficient embryos display exencephaly and exhibit morphological alterations of the neuroepithelium that suggest defects in neural tube closure. Ephrin B1 is required in APs to maintain apical adhesion, they report, and ephrin B1 reverse signalling controls integrin-based cell-ECM apical adhesion through inhibition of ADP-ribosylation factor 6. These results suggest that ephrin B1 maintains the apical adhesion of APs during cortical development, a function that is essential for neural tube morphogenesis.

Fascin-ating melanoblast migration

The actin-bundling protein fascin 1 is expressed at specific times and places during development, and is often expressed in tumours. Fascin 1 has a clear role in cell migration in vitro but what is its role in vivo? To answer this question, Laura Machesky and co-workers have been studying the role of fascin 1 in the mouse melanocyte lineage and in human melanoma cells (p. 2203). They report that fascin 1 knockout mice have hypopigmentation defects that arise from reduced melanoblast migration and proliferation during embryogenesis. By studying live embryo skin explants, they show that fascin 1-null melanoblasts migrate and differentiate in the skin but with a lower efficiency than wild-type melanoblasts. They also show that fascin 1 depletion slows melanoblast proliferation in vivo and human melanoma cell growth in vitro. The researchers suggest, therefore, that transient expression of fascin 1 in mouse melanoblasts during embryogenesis promotes their migration and proliferation, and that fascin 1 expression may aid the proliferation and invasion of some tumour cells.

Plant vascular tissue lines up

Plant vascular tissue is derived from the cambium and procambium, which are meristems that contain long thin stem cells that divide down their long axis. These highly organised divisions produce characteristic files of cells in the xylem and ensure spatial separation of the xylem and phloem. The ligand-receptor pair CLE41-PXY regulates vascular cell division, vascular organisation and xylem differentiation. Now, on p. 2224, Simon Turner and colleagues provide new insights into the factors that act downstream of PXY in Arabidopsis. The researchers show that WOX4, which encodes a transcription factor previously shown to act downstream of PXY, acts redundantly with WOX14 to regulate vascular cell division but that neither gene regulates vascular organisation. Moreover, they identify an interaction between PXY and the receptor kinase ERECTA that affects the organisation of the vascular tissue but not its rate of cell division. The researchers propose, therefore, that PXY and ERECTA signalling integrate cell division and vascular organisation in the Arabidopsis stem, thereby ensuring normal stem formation.

PLUS…

An intracellular partitioning-based framework for tissue cell polarity in plants and animals

Tissue cell polarity plays a major role in plant and animal development. Coen and colleagues propose that a fundamental building block for tissue cell polarity is the process of intracellular partitioning, which can establish individual cell polarity in the absence of asymmetric cues. See the Hypothesis article on p. 2061.

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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!

(8 votes)

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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.

(4 votes)

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SpotOn, Nature Publishing Group’s online forum for science policy, outreach and tools, and organiser of community events, is currently running a series on the use of social media for science outreach. As part of this series, we were asked to share our experience of setting up and running the Node.

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!

(3 votes)

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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.

To find out more and access the latest issue of the journal, go to http://dmm.biologists.org/

(2 votes)

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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 (5^th to 17^th 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.

Fellowships will be available

DEADLINE 31^st July 2013

More information about the course in:

http://biodesarrollo.unab.cl/

For a summary about the previous course see:

https://thenode.biologists.com/a-wave-from-quintay-2/

(5 votes)

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