The Company of Biologists and its journal Development are seeking to appoint a new Community Manager to run its successful community website the Node and the journal’s social media activities.

Launched in 2010, the Node is the place for the developmental biology community to share news, discuss issues relevant to the field and read about the latest research and events. We are now looking for an enthusiastic and motivated person to develop and maintain the site.

Core responsibilities of the position include:

–       Creating and commissioning content for the Node, including writing posts and soliciting content from the academic community, societies and other organisations
–       Providing creative and practical input into the development of the site
–       Maintaining and developing Development’s and the Node’s presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter
–       Contributing non peer-reviewed content to the journal
–       Representing Development and the Node at international conferences
–       Contributing to the Company of Biologists’ outreach activities

The successful applicant will have:
–       Research experience in the biological sciences, ideally a PhD in developmental or stem cell biology
–       Proven blogging and social media skills, ideally including experience with WordPress
–       A clear understanding of the online environment as it applies to scientists
–       Excellent writing and communication skills
–       Excellent interpersonal and networking abilities – both online and in person

This is an exciting opportunity to develop an already successful and well-known site, engaging with the academic, publishing and online communities. The Community Manager will work alongside an experienced and growing team, including Development’s Executive Editor, as well as with the journal’s international team of academic editors. Additional responsibilities may be provided for the right candidate. The position will be based in our office in Cambridge, UK.

The Company of Biologists (www.biologists.com) is a not-for-profit organisation, publishing five journals in the biological sciences: the three established journals Development, Journal of Cell Science and The Journal of Experimental Biology, as well as two newer Open Access journals, Disease Models & Mechanisms and Biology Open. The organisation has an active programme of charitable giving for the further advancement of biological research, including travelling fellowships for junior scientists and contributions to academic societies and conferences.

Applicants should send a CV along with a covering letter that summarises their relevant experience (including, if possible, links to online activities), salary expectations, and why they are enthusiastic about this opportunity.

Applications should be sent by email no later than January 20^th 2013 to miriam@thecob.co.uk
Informal queries to Miriam Ganczkowski on +44 (0)1223 426 164
Applicants should be eligible to work in the UK.

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Today’s recommended paper is:

Offspring from Oocytes Derived from in Vitro Primordial Germ Cell-like Cells in Mice
Katsuhiko Hayashi et al. (2012)
Science 338 (6109), 971-975

Submitted by Eva Amsen:
“I saw Mitinori Saitou present this work at the EMBO meeting and it made me realize how far this fast-moving field has already come.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

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There are a lot of situations in life where the “middleman” is unnecessary and costly.  In cells, that middleman is necessary and fascinating at the same time.  The sequence of DNA to middleman mRNA to protein provides our cells with countless ways to regulate complex events, including those surrounding stem cell divisions.

When stem cells divide, one daughter cell maintains stem cell characteristics while the other daughter cell follows a path towards differentiation.  Before differentiation, this cell can divide several times during a stage called transit-amplification.   In the fruit fly testes, the division of the germline stem cell (GSC) produces another GSC and transit-amplifying cells called spermatogonial cells.  Spermatogonial cells begin differentiating as they pass through the spermatocyte stage on their way to becoming sperm.  A recent paper in the journal Development investigates the regulation of a key differentiation factor, Bam (Bag of marbles), during this transition.  Bam protein is found in spermatogonial cells, but is not found in the later spermatocyte stage (yet bam mRNA is present).  According to Eun and colleagues, post-transcriptional regulation of Bam levels occurs through microRNA binding at the bam 3’UTR.  Overexpression of the two microRNAs involved delayed the proliferation-to-differentiation transition, while failure of Bam down-regulation caused differentiation problems leading to male sterility.  The images above show fruit fly testes stained to show the GSC hub (small red hub), spermatocytes (green) and Bam protein (red, white in inset images).  In a control testis (left), Bam protein is found in spermatogonial cells near the GSCs.  When the bam 3’UTR sequence was replaced with the 3’UTR of a constitutively expressed tubulin gene, Bam protein is found throughout spermatocytes as well.

For a more general description of this image, see my imaging blog within EuroStemCell, the European stem cell portal.

Eun, S., Stoiber, P., Wright, H., McMurdie, K., Choi, C., Gan, Q., Lim, C., & Chen, X. (2012). MicroRNAs downregulate Bag of marbles to ensure proper terminal differentiation in the Drosophila male germline Development, 140 (1), 23-30 DOI: 10.1242/dev.086397

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Today’s recommended paper is:

A Mechanoresponsive Cadherin-Keratin Complex Directs Polarized Protrusive Behavior and Collective Cell Migration
Gregory F. Weber, Maureen A. Bjerke and Douglas W. DeSimone (December 2011)
Developmental Cell 22 (1), 104-115

Submitted by Katherine Brown

“This beautiful paper uses cadherin-coated magnetic beads applied to single Xenopus gastrula cells in culture to demonstrate that tension polarises the cell and determines the direction of migration, and to investigate the mechanosensory pathway involved. The work exemplifies our increasing appreciation of the role that physical forces have in determining cell and tissue behaviour during development.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

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Remember the skate image by David Gold, Lynn Kee, and Meghan Morrissey of the 2011 Woods Hole embryology course? It won the cover competition in April, and appeared on the cover of Development issue 139(12).

Today, at the Company of Biologists Christmas lunch, we held a small inter-journal cover competition. Over the past few weeks, all our colleagues from Development, Journal of Cell Science, Biology Open, Disease Models and Mechanisms and the Journal of Experimental Biology voted for their favourite (and least favourite) covers submitted by editors of each journal. Development had submitted the skate cover – and won! It was a close race with JEB’s chameleon cover.

Of course this was all YOUR doing. Thanks David, Lynn, and Meghan for taking the image, and thanks to everyone else for voting it onto the cover. You helped us win chocolate for the office!

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Although I’m not a fan of simply reposting press releases, this press release from The Coalition for the Life Sciences, about a letter-campaign by Nobel Laureates to emphasize the importance of research funding, is worthy of a read. The coalition is made up of several scientific organisations that overlap with the Node’s readership (ASBMB, ASCB, GSA, HHMI, SfN, and ASCI). While the press release is focused on the US, cuts in research funding in the US will indirectly affect us all.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2012
Nobel Laureates Warn Against Going over the Fiscal Cliff

Bethesda, Maryland – Nobel Laureates from across the country are warning Congressional leaders and President Obama about the danger the fiscal cliff poses to research and innovation.
Starting December 3, the Coalition for the Life Sciences has sent a letter a day from a Nobel Laureate in either Chemistry or Physiology and Medicine. Twenty Nobel Laureates are engaged in this campaign. In these letters, each Laureate emphasizes the importance of federally funded research and the dire consequences of funding cuts. Of particular concern, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will face an 8.2% across-the-board cut starting January 1, 2013, if Congress and the Administration refuse to agree on solutions to the fiscal cliff.
Coalition Board member H. Robert Horvitz, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He said, “This potentially very deep cut to the NIH as well as to all other federally-funded science would negatively impact job creation and seriously jeopardize the long-standing leadership position of the U.S. in research and innovation.”
Paul Berg, from Stanford University and the co-recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, agreed. “Past support of the NIH by the United States Congress has enabled the American scientific enterprise to rise to world leadership in the physical and life sciences. It is also why Americans have dominated as recipients of the Nobel and other illustrious Prizes.”
All the Nobel Laureates are concerned that cuts to the NIH will stifle discoveries that improve health, save lives, and drive our economy. NIH supports scientists and their critical work in every state across the nation, which means that every state would feel the negative effects of going over the fiscal cliff. Laboratories would shut down, scientists would be laid off, and local businesses that support research would close. Progress on developing promising new cures would slow, if not stop outright.
Coalition Director Lynn Marquis said the campaign arose from a shared anxiety among Coalition members about the future of the nation’s leadership in scientific output and innovation. “We felt strongly that voices from the scientific community needed to be heard and the Nation’s Laureates provide a unique voice that adds gravitas to the debate in Washington.”

The Coalition for the Life Sciences is an alliance of six non-profit professional organizations working together to foster public policies that advance basic biological research and its applications in medicine and other fields. For further information, please call Lynn Marquis, the Director of the CLS, at (301) 347-9309 or visit www.coalitionforlifesciences.org

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Today’s recommended paper is:

Free Extracellular Diffusion Creates the Dpp Morphogen Gradient of the Drosophila Wing Disc
Shaohua Zhou et al. (2012)
Current Biology 22 (8), 668-675

Submitted by Barry Thompson:
“This paper overturns the idea that the Dpp morphogen moves by transcytosis.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

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Today’s recommended paper is:

A Human Stem Cell Model of Early Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology in Down Syndrome
Yichen Shi et al. (2012)
Science Translational Medicine 4 (124), 124ra29

Submitted by Claire Cox:
“I found this paper fascinating as it demonstrates the potential of iPSC technology for studying disease pathology in culture. Generating cortical neurons from iPSCs and ES cells that have signs of Alzheimer’s Disease is remarkable and could pave the way for future studies such as drug screens.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

(1 votes)

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Today’s recommended paper is:

Morphogenesis of outflow tract rotation during cardiac development: The pulmonary push concept
Roderick W.C. Scherptong et al. (2012)
Developmental Dynamics 241 (9), 1413-1422

Submitted by Heather Etchevers:
“This modest paper carefully compiles observational data to support a dynamic model of organogenesis. I appreciate this sort of approach as it opens the field for others to confirm or improve on the hypothesis. The way science works – not all about proving small things, but getting incrementally closer to a big picture understanding.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

(1 votes)

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Today’s recommended paper is:

Variation of BMP3 contributes to dog breed skull diversity
Jeffrey J. Schoenebeck et al. (2012)
PLOS Genetics 8 (8), e1002849

Submitted by Katherine Brown

” Elaine Ostrander discussed this approach to understanding phenotypic diversity at the SDB meeting earlier this year, and it’s an impressive example of how the power of genetics can be harnessed to gain insight into the molecular basis of a wide range of developmental and behavioural traits.”

From December 1 to 24 we are featuring Node readers’ favourite papers of the past year. Click the calendar in the side bar each day to see a new paper. To see all papers submitted so far, see the calendar archive.

(1 votes)

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