This article summarises a series of recent studies around the mental health crisis in science and the toxic research culture behind it. What has been done to address these issues? What can universities, funders, and other academic institutions do to drive larger, systemic changes in research culture? How can we make better use of platforms like the Node to normalise talking about mental health?
The disturbing data and stories in this report make all the more important that @UKRI_News seizes the opportunity of the FRAP (Future of Research Assessment Programme) to create incentives for positive culture change. https://t.co/EUGqLx1N9s
This editorial written by Science Editor-in-Chief H. Holden Thorp has resonated with many people on Twitter. There is still lots to do in order to build a scientific workforce that reflects the public it serves.
Take a look at what people think.
"Scientists should embrace their humanity rather than pretending they are a bunch of automatons who instantly reach perfectly objective conclusions." Fact is, it matters who does the science – as it determines how and what science gets done. https://t.co/CMptrB7tHL
— Dean Lola Eniola-Adefeso (@Lola_UIC) May 12, 2023
Yes, it matters who does science. And, I am adding, it also matters HOW we do science.
A massive work culture change is required. The cut throat competition needs to stop. The focus on individuals when they could not have achieved alone, needs to stop. https://t.co/5PV2iaBWS6
"the public has been taught scientific insight occurs when old white guys run out of bathtubs shouting 'Eureka!'…That’s not how it works…scientists work in teams [who] share findings with other scientists who make more refinements" https://t.co/eSy0XUm3XZ
I think @hholdenthorp recent piece "It matters who does science." hits the nail on the head, "Scientists should embrace their humanity…" & part of that is working to meet basic needs of well being for the people that do the science. https://t.co/yA2QuZnZ9L
— Siegenthaler_Lab (@SiegenthalerLab) May 17, 2023
A selection of preLights posts relevant to the Node readers. Head over to preLights to see what other recent preprints have been highlighted.
Laboratory evolution of flies to morphogen dosage via rapid maternal changes reveals predictable outcomesby Xueying C. Li et al. To ‘big embryo’ (BE), or not to BE, that’s the question. Selected by Girish Kale. Read the preLight here.
Coordinated growth of linked epithelia is mediated by the Hippo pathwayby Sophia Friesen, Iswar K. Hariharan Roses are red, violets are blue, when the disk proper grows, hippo stretches peripodial epithelium too. Selected by Girish Kale. Read the preLight here.
Conserved Chamber-Specific Polyploidy Maintains Heart Function in Drosophilaby Archan Chakraborty et al. The importance of being in the right place, with the right ploidy, at the right time- and how not to mend broken hearts. Selected by Anastasia Moraiti. Read the preLight here.
Insm1 regulates the development of mTECs and immune toleranceby Wehuai Tao et al. A new player in establishing immune tolerance: How Insm1 regulates mTEC gene expression. Selected by Marina Schernthanner and Jessica Chevallier. Read the preLight here.
Nutrient-regulated dynamics of chondroprogenitors in the postnatal murine growth plateby Takeshi Oichi et al. Fasted bones grow fast later: chondroprogenitors in the growth plate of murine long bones adapt to dietary restriction, leading to catch-up growth during refeeding. Selected by Alberto Rosello-Diez and Boya (Hannah) Zhang and Chee Ho H’ng. Read the preLight here.
Small leucine-rich proteoglycans inhibit CNS regeneration by modifying the structural and mechanical properties of the lesion environmentby Julia Kolb et al. Who is the culprit? Small leucine-rich proteoglycans inhibit axonal regrowth in the lesioned zebrafish spinal cord by changing the structure and mechanics of the extracellular matrix. Selected by Laura Celotto. Read the preLight here.
The phosphodiesterase 2A regulates lymphatic endothelial development via cGMP-mediated control of Notch signalingby Claudia Carlantoni et al. An essential function for the phosphodiesterase 2A during regulation of lymphatic vessel maturation. Selected by Andreas van Impel and Sanjay Sunil Kumar. Read the preLight here.
A transcriptional and regulatory map of mouse somitogenesisby Ximena Ibarra-Soria et al. Somitogenesis: common and divergent maturation programmes along the anteroposterior axis. Selected by Sergio Menchero. Read the preLight here.
Bovine blastocyst like structures derived from stem cell culturesby Carlos A. Pinzón-Arteaga et al. A new livestock embryo model from a self-renewing source. Selected by Carly Guiltinan. Read the preLight here.
Mechanical forces across compartments coordinate cell shape and fate transitions to generate tissue architectureby Clémentine Villeneuve et al. It takes two to tango: coordinated mechanical contributions from epithelium and dermal fibroblasts help break symmetry for downgrowth and fate patterns in mouse hair follicles. Selected by Sudeepa Nandi. Read the preLight here.
A patterned human heart tube organoid model generated by pluripotent stem cell self-assemblyby Brett Volmert et al. A patterned human heart tube organoid model generated by pluripotent stem cell self-assembly. Selected by Silvia Becca. Read the preLight here.
Gene complementation analysis suggests that dodder plants (Cuscuta spp.) do not depend on the host FT protein for floweringby Sina Mäckelmann et al. Host-independent flowering of Cuscuta spp. reignites the search for a ‘Florigen’. Selected by Gwendolyn K. Kirschner and Marc Somssich. Read the preLight here.
Plasmodesmal connectivity in C4 Gynandropsis gynandra is induced by light and dependent on photosynthesisby Tina B. Schreier et al. Light and photosynthesis trigger plasmodesmal formation in C4 dicotyledons. Selected by Yueh Cho. Read the preLight here.
Tristan Frum, Peggy P. Hsu, Renee F.C. Hein, Ansley S. Conchola, Charles J. Zhang, Olivia R. Utter, Abhinav Anand, Yi Zhang, Sydney G. Clark, Ian Glass, Jonathan Z. Sexton, Jason R. Spence
Jeremie Oliver Pina, Daniela M Roth, Resmi Raju, Emma Wentworth Winchester, Parna Chattaraj, Fahad K Kidwai, Fabio R Faucz, James Iben, Cameron Padilla, Justin L Cotney, Rena N D’Souza
Rebecca M. Green, Lucas D. Lo Vercio, Andreas Dauter, Elizabeth C. Barretto, Jay Devine, Marta Vidal-García, Marta Marchini, Samuel Robertson, Xiang Zhao, Anandita Mahika, M. Bilal Shakir, Sienna Guo, Julia C. Boughner, Wendy Dean, Arthur D. Lander, Ralph S. Marcucio, Nils D. Forkert, Benedikt Hallgrímsson
Chiemela Ohanele, Jessica N. Peoples, Anja Karlstaedt, Joshua T. Geiger, Ashley D. Gayle, Nasab Ghazal, Fateemaa Sohani, Milton E. Brown, Michael E. Davis, George A. Porter Jr., Victor Faundez, Jennifer Q. Kwong
Derek C. Liberti, Hongbo Wen, Kwaku K. Quansah, Prashant Chandrasekaran, Josh Pankin, Nigel S. Michki, Annabelle Jin, MinQi Lu, Maureen Peers De Nieuwburgh, Lisa R. Young, Rajan Jain, David B. Frank
Derek C. Liberti, Hongbo Wen, Kwaku K. Quansah, Prashant Chandrasekaran, Josh Pankin, Nigel S. Michki, Annabelle Jin, MinQi Lu, Maureen Peers De Nieuwburgh, Lisa R. Young, Rajan Jain, David B. Frank
Rachel Queen, Moira Crosier, Lorraine Eley, Janet Kerwin, Jasmin E. Turner, Jianshi Yu, Tamil Dhanaseelan, Lynne Overman, Hannah Soetjoadi, Richard Baldock, Jonathon Coxhead, Veronika Boczonadi, Alex Laude, Simon J. Cockell, Maureen A. Kane, Steven Lisgo, Deborah J. Henderson
Jennifer N. Chousal, Srimeenakshi Srinivasan, Katherine Lee, Cuong To, Kyucheol Cho, Wei Zhang, Ana Lisa Yeo, V. Gabriel Garzo, Mana M. Parast, Louise C. Laurent, Heidi Cook-Andersen
Christopher J. Johnson, Akhil Kulkarni, William J. Buxton, Tsz Y. Hui, Anusha Kayastha, Alwin A. Khoja, Joviane Leandre, Vanshika V. Mehta, Logan Ostrowski, Erica G. Pareizs, Rebecca L. Scotto, Vanesa Vargas, Raveena M. Vellingiri, Giulia Verzino, Rhea Vohra, Saurabh C. Wakade, Veronica M. Winkeljohn, Victoria M. Winkeljohn, Travis M. Rotterman, Alberto Stolfi
Carmen L. Diaz Soria, Teresa Attenborough, Zhigang Lu, Jennie Graham, Christopher Hall, Sam Thompson, Toby G. R. Andrews, Kate A. Rawlinson, Matthew Berriman, Gabriel Rinaldi
Abdulvasey Mohammed, Priscila Ferreira Slepicka, Benjamin Solomon, Kelsea M Hubka, Hanh Dan Nguyen, Michael G Chavez, Christine Y Yeh, Virginia D Winn, Casey A Gifford, Purvesh Khatri, Andrew Gentles, Katja Gabrielle Weinacht
Eric Bartell, Kuang Lin, Kristin Tsuo, Wei Gan, Sailaja Vedantam, Joanne B Cole, John M Baronas, Loic Yengo, Eirini Marouli, Tiffany Amariuta, GIANT Consortium, Nora E Renthal, Christina M Jacobsen, Rany Salem, Robin G Walters, Joel N Hirschhorn
Allegra Angeloni, Skye Fissette, Deniz Kaya, Jillian M. Hammond, Hasindu Gamaarachchi, Ira W. Deveson, Robert J. Klose, Weiming Li, Xiaotian Zhang, Ozren Bogdanovic
Darren Blackburn, Korin Sahinyan, Aldo Hernnandez Corchado, Felicia Lazure, Vincent Richard, Laura Raco, Rene Zahedi, Christoph Borchers, Christoph Lepper, Hiroshi Kawabe, Arezu Jahani-asl, Hamed S Najafabadi, Vahab D Soleimani
Duygu Payzin-Dogru, Sarah E. Wilson, Steven J. Blair, Aaron M. Savage, Emil Kriukov, Victor Cat, Louis V. Cammarata, Burcu Erdogan, Shifa Hossain, Noah Lopez, Julia Losner, Juan C. Velazquez Matos, Sangwon Min, Kelly Dooling, Bobby Groves, Alan Y. Wong, Petr Baranov, Hani Singer, Isaac M. Chiu, Brian J. Haas, Jessica L. Whited
Regenerating axolotl limbs from Payzin-Dogru et al.
Natalia A. Veniaminova, Yunlong Jia, Adrien M. Hartigan, Thomas J. Huyge, Shih-Ying Tsai, Marina Grachtchouk, Seitaro Nakagawa, Andrzej A. Dlugosz, Scott X. Atwood, Sunny Y. Wong
Mary Bergwell, Amy Smith, Ellie Smith, Carter Dierlam, Ramon Duran, Erin Haastrup, Rebekah Napier-Jameson, Rory Seidel, William Potter, Adam Norris, Jyoti Iyer
Bess P. Rosen, Qing V. Li, Hyunwoo Cho, Dingyu Liu, Dapeng Yang, Sarah Graff, Jielin Yan, Renhe Luo, Nipun Verma, Jeyaram R. Damodaran, Michael A. Beer, Simone Sidoli, Danwei Huangfu
Neha Zutshi, Bhopal C Mohapatra, Pinaki Mondal, Wei An, Benjamin T Goetz, Shou Wang, Scong Li, Matthew D Storck, David Mercer, Adrian R Black, Sarah P Thayer, Jennifer Black, Chi Lin, Vimla Band, Hamid Band
Neha Zutshi, Bhopal C. Mohapatra, Pinaki Mondal, Wei An, Benjamin T. Goetz, Shuo Wang, Sicong Li, Matthew D. Storck, David F. Mercer, Adrian R. Black, Sarah P. Thayer, Jennifer D. Black, Chi Lin, Vimla Band, Hamid Band
Biao Huang, Zipeng Zeng, Hui Li, Zexu Li, Xi Chen, Jinjin Guo, Chennan C. Zhang, Megan E. Schreiber, Ariel C. Vonk, Tianyuan Xiang, Tadrushi Patel, Yidan Li, Riana K. Parvez, Balint Der, Jyun Hao Chen, Zhenqing Liu, Matthew E. Thornton, Brendan H. Grubbs, Yarui Diao, Yali Dou, Ksenia Gnedeva, Nils O. Lindström, Qilong Ying, Nuria M. Pastor-Soler, Teng Fei, Kenneth R. Hallows, Andrew P. McMahon, Zhongwei Li
Katherine S Stewart, Kevin AU Gonzales, Shaopeng Yuan, Matthew T Tierney, Alain R Bonny, Yihao Yang, Nicole R Infarinato, Christopher J Cowley, John M Levorse, Hilda Amalia Pasolli, Sourav Ghosh, Carla V Rothlin, Elaine Fuchs
Leticia F. Ferigolo, Mateus H. Vicente, Joao P. O. Correa, Carlos H. Barrera-Rojas, Eder M. Silva, Geraldo F.F. Silva, Airton Carvalho Jr, Lazaro E.P. Peres, Guilherme B. Ambrosano, Gabriel R. A. Margarido, Robert Sablowski, Fabio T.S. Nogueira
S Manrique, A Cavalleri, A Guazzotti, GH Villarino, S Simonini, A Bombarely, T Higashiyama, U Grossniklaus, C Mizzotti, AM Pereira, S Coimbra, S Sankaranarayanan, E Onelli, S Masiero, RG Franks, L Colombo
Doosan Shin, Veronica C Perez, Gabriella K Dickinson, Haohao Zhao, Ru Dai, Breanna M Tomiczek, Keun Ho Cho, Ning Zhu, Jin Koh, Alexander Grenning, Jeongim Kim
María Ángeles Rodríguez de Cara, Paul Jay, Quentin Rougemont, Mathieu Chouteau, Annabel Whibley, Barbara Huber, Florence Piron-Prunier, Renato Rogner Ramos, André V. L. Freitas, Camilo Salazar, Karina Lucas Silva-Brandão, Tatiana Teixeira Torres, Mathieu Joron
Samuel E. Ross, Javier Vázquez-Marín, Krista R.B. Gert, Álvaro González-Rajal, Marcel E. Dinger, Andrea Pauli, Juan Ramon Martínez-Morales, Ozren Bogdanovic
Mary Bergwell, Amy Smith, Ellie Smith, Carter Dierlam, Ramon Duran, Erin Haastrup, Rebekah Napier-Jameson, Rory Seidel, William Potter, Adam Norris, Jyoti Iyer
Neha Zutshi, Bhopal C. Mohapatra, Pinaki Mondal, Wei An, Benjamin T. Goetz, Shuo Wang, Sicong Li, Matthew D. Storck, David F. Mercer, Adrian R. Black, Sarah P. Thayer, Jennifer D. Black, Chi Lin, Vimla Band, Hamid Band
Benjamin Liffner, Ana Karla Cepeda Diaz, James Blauwkamp, David Anaguano, Sonja Frölich, Vasant Muralidharan, Danny W. Wilson, Jeffrey Dvorin, Sabrina Absalon
The seventh episode of Made the Same Way, a podcast produced by the Wellcome-funded Human Developmental Biology Initiative, features sociologist and writer Marieke Bigg discussing the ethics of research with early human embryos with Mancunian poet and rapper Meduulla. The pair discuss the legacy of Anne McLaren and muse on future implications of this area of research.
At the end of the episode, the pair collaborate on an original piece of music inspired by their conversation.
“What things can we consider to be right and wrong, and who makes that decision?”
– Meduulla
About the participants
Marieke Bigg writes about bodies and culture. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, where she studied the technological transformation of human reproduction, with a focus on Dr Anne McLaren’s role in the human embryo research debates. She now writes both non-fiction and fiction about the cultural dimensions of biology and bodies. In addition to her books, Marieke writes freelance, hosts podcasts and panels, and collaborates with scientists and biologists to discuss and produce art that conjures new social worlds.
Hailing from North Manchester, Meduulla is a 23 year old Zimbabwean-born Rapper, Poet and DJ paving her way through the UK rap scene. Meduulla marries her modern flows and witty lyrics with jazz inspired hip hop instrumentals to create music that reflects the present day whilst carrying a nostalgic air.
Despite having been a writer for 10 years, she only released her first single in 2021 which then led to her appearance on BBC’s The Rap Game UK as a finalist. Her independently released single, Mish Muulla was selected as Track of the Week on BBC 1Xtra Radio,resulting in Meduulla performing at Reading and Leeds Festival in 2022. The wordsmith is a 2023 Sound and Music Seed Award recipient and her poetry won first prize in TogetherintheUK’s migrant writers competition. Her passion for using her lyricism as a force of positive change continues to be recognised by various cultural organisations.
In 2023, Meduulla will release her debut project entitled Oblongata.
Please subscribe and listen to Made the Same Way on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts to help others find us!
Gender problems in STEM are familiar to women researchers in every corner of the world. Japan is no exception. In a culture that seeks harmony and balance with people around, where conflict is avoided at all costs, it is often difficult to express someone’s needs. Social pressure is working in very subtle ways. You have an event in a room with photos of the previous heads of the department, twenty or thirty of them, which are all men; you go to a conference and see the overwhelming majority of the keynote speakers being male researchers; you notice the appointed leaders of the diversity and inclusion groups are mostly male when the volunteer groups have hardly any. The hours researchers stay in the laboratory make you feel like you are reliving the same day again and again; the boisterous communication style and jokes and comments are too harsh for you. The passion you once had for research is slowly withering away, leaving you with the feeling of unhappiness and unworthiness, and you give up, thinking that you are not made for this work, you are not a good fit, with a question in your mind: “How did I end up here?”.
I was lucky to grow up in a bubble where science was never gendered, there were no sciences that were inherently for women or men, and there were no subjects that some genders were naturally bad at. My parents were working in science-related areas, and they would divide school subjects between them. My mother would help me with mathematics, chemistry, and biology. My father with English, physics, and music. So, it never occurred to me that there was a need for societies supporting women researchers until I moved to Japan. My intrinsic belief that science is for everyone was challenged by a different culture, where many people of both genders believed otherwise for one reason or another. The confusion and frustration led me to research the problem (what else a scientist can do!?). And what I discovered – amazed me.
The universities in Europe and North America have women in STEM organisations active on social media, organising events, inviting young women scientists, actively connecting, and searching for opportunities to widen the network. These societies are vocal and visible, making the world know they exist. They constantly push for change. There are university-based workshops, training programs, and symposiums specifically for women in research. There is this feeling of women researchers trying to unite and support each other, pave the way for future generations, and improve the working environment.
I wished something like this existed in Japan. Most of the groups I found were quite exclusive: only for students, or mainly in Japanese, with no easily accessible information on how to join and what kind of events they are planning. There was little presence on social media, and you would need to make a targeted search to find them. I rarely hear about women researchers-oriented events or workshops, and yet to hear about women researcher-oriented training university programs.
So, I searched for women researchers’ communities outside the university and found ‘’Women in Science Japan’’, the young community founded by Elizabeth Oda, Dr. Sarah K. Abe and Lauren Hartz in 2019. I looked through their website and joined on the spot. I had a chance to talk with one of the co-founders, Elizabeth, and asked her about the motivation behind creating “Women in Science Japan”:
I and my co-founders created this community to address what we have witnessed as gender inequality in Japan, both the statistics you can often hear in the media and micro- and macroaggressions women experience. We also wanted to start with students and give a voice to students in high schools and universities. Because we knew both from the literature and from our own experience that in Japan, there are many negative stereotypes around women pursuing STEM and girls are discouraged from pursuing these fields from the young age.
Elizabeth says that one of the reasons most people join “Women in Science Japan”, and the one she thinks is very important for the future of the community and hopes to improve – is a mentorship program. That was one of my reasons for joining too. Even without talking about being an international researcher in a country that doesn’t speak your native language and has completely different social structures, finding your way in a field that wasn’t designed for you is difficult. I often feel that mentoring comes naturally to male researchers, whereas women researchers need it even more but receive it very rarely and are expected to figure out many things on their own. The community evolved, and apart from students, it started to focus more on early-career women. Elizabeth notes that it was important to create a space where members can be vulnerable, authentic, and empowered, without the fear of retribution, discipline or ostracisation, to feel heard and to have someone else say, “You are experiencing that too? I thought it was just me.”
The reality is that gender inequality is a systemic problem that an individual person can’t solve, so the idea was to create a culture that is more aware of the issues, willing to discuss the issues, face the issues, and hopefully raise these issues outside of the Women in Science Japan community.
Women in Science Japan now unites scientists, educators, women working in start-ups and the corporate world, and students at high schools and universities. Geology, biology, engineering, IT – all fields of science are welcome. And it is beautiful. It is invigorating to have such diversity, to be with people from all walks of life, with different backgrounds and different life stories. It is empowering and inspiring to hear what fellow members have overcome and where they are heading. It is not easy to be vulnerable and share your story, but if the person decides to do it – it is a treasure, a path for growth for both the person sharing and the person listening.
Women in Science Japan offers various activities: career-related events, mentorship mentioned earlier, casual events, and the book club (!). Elizabeth says that the book club is one of the things she is proud of. The book is chosen by members interested in joining the club and is related to gender inequality, science, and Japan. Currently, the book club is reading “How to Be an Inclusive Leader: Your Role in Creating Cultures of Belonging Where Everyone Can Thrive” by Jennifer Brown, which touches on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Being a part of the book club is a fantastic experience for me. The same text often generates different responses in different people, and this experience is the diversity in action. It is eye-opening to hear what people think and how the same words are heard differently because of the different backgrounds. Reading the book together, rather than alone, creates deep conversations, challenges to see the text from different angles and helps to navigate difficult questions.
I think we can only overcome our hardships and glass ceilings by holding each other’s hands and supporting and helping each other. This is one of the things Women in Science Japan is trying to achieve, a support system to help members to navigate complicated work situations or decisions, get feedback, provide clarity about career paths, and create a network that helps to build their businesses or solve work-related problems, or for international members to settle in Japan. And I wanted to use my chances to speak to the world and encourage women researchers to unite, to join communities like “Women in Science Japan”, to create new communities of like-minded people, say for women scientists in developmental biology or tissue engineering, or working on a specific problem. To be visible, vocal, advocate for your needs, become more confident, and create a welcoming future for the new generations of women in science. Or make a safe space for sharing your thoughts, finding your way, and knowing that you are not alone.
You are very welcome to join “Women in Science Japan” if you are currently working in science-related areas in Japan.
But if you are in countries other than Japan, here are some links that can get you started on your journey of finding a safe space. (Thank you to my fellow correspondents, The Node community manager, and my friends for helping me with this list.)
“Cancer rates vary wildly across the world, and we don’t know why. To solve this mystery, scientists are tracking down causes of cancer by the fingerprints they leave in the genome”
Dr Kat Arney
In the latest episode of the Genetics Unzipped podcast, we’re chasing down the perpetrator of a scientific Whodunnit with the DNA detectives – the Mutographs of Cancer team, who are on the hunt for the causes of cancer
In sixth episode of HDBI’s podcast, Made the Same Way, scientist Katie Long explores the topic of human brain development with spoken word artist Harmony.
At the end of the episode, Harmony creates an original spoken word piece based on their conversation.
If we look at every single person’s brain, most of these wrinkles will be in the same place.”
-Katie Long
About the participants
Katie’s labhas been at King’s College London since 2019, and their research focuses on how the human neocortex develops with the correct size, shape and organisation. To address this they use an interdisciplinary approach using human fetal cortex tissue models to look at the cellular and mechanical mechanisms that drive the development of the human neocortex, including the formation of the folds present on the surface of the neocortex, and how dysregulation of these functions can lead to neurodevelopmental disorders. They also use our human fetal tissue culture models to investigate the effect of injury on the developing human brain.
In her spare time, Katie likes to get outdoors and she is a keen cyclist and runner.
Harmony is a spoken word artist who has been interested in the arts since she watched her first movie.
Please subscribe and listen to Made the Same Way on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts to help others find us!
The lab is located in the Cochin Institute (14th arrondissement of Paris), in between la Butte aux Cailles and Montparnasse.
2. Research summary
Antoine: We use the cranial neural crest as a model to understand how cell fate decision and cell plasticity are regulated during embryogenesis. This population presents a remarkable differentiation potential as it gives rise to the entire peripheral nervous system and to most of the craniofacial skeleton. We are also testing whether cranial neural crest plasticity could be harnessed to enhance postnatal bone regeneration.
The Zalc Lab
3. Can you give us a lab roll call, with a sentence including what each person works on and career stage
Jean-Christophe: Engineer – trust in sphere, spend money the PI collect, love, and hate expectation
Saverio: Master2 student – trying to understand neural crest regionalization: cares for his many little spheres, gets happy when they behave nicely, starts shouting in Italian when they do random stuff just to annoy him.
Martina: Master2 student – trying to not get crazy when she obtains just 5 ng/ul of RNA from 150 spheres, in love with multichannel pipettes
Laura: Postdoc – juggles with differentiating spheres, sees the light at the scope, pipets hard at the bench, wants to understand the tuning of Oct4 for cell plasticity, is driven by curiosity
Antoine: PI – does the paperwork, have multiple meetings every day, jumps and/or dance when new data arrive
4. Favourite technique, and why?
Antoine: Depends on the question we are asking.
If I had to choose it will be genetic lineage tracing. The embryo being the best teacher, this technic provides a clear understanding of the decision made by the cells, and it generates great images.
Then RNA in situ hybridization, works beautifully on whole embryo or sections. Allows to the questions what are cells asking before, during and after they made a choice.
5. Apart from your own research, what are you most excited about in developmental and stem cell biology
Antoine: We are reaching a stage where we are done naming things. We are now able to understand development with equations. The advances of single cell omics will soon allow us to reconstruct an entire embryo in sillico. With this, it will be possible to predict how an environmental or genetic perturbation affects development. This will also allow us to generate several scenarios to rescue the defect, which can be much later than when the problem occurs.
I’m also really excited by the rapid progress made with organoïds. I was skeptical at first, but this is becoming an excellent tool to study basic cell behavior and logic.
6. How do you approach managing your group and all the different tasks required in your job?
Antoine: This is a learning process… I’m a strong believer that science must be fun! We spend so much time and effort doing it we should at least enjoy the process. For it to be fun, this implies scientific rigor, work ethics, good technical skills and simply being humane.
I’m still learning about the different task required by the job! Using the one thing I learnt during my PhD and postdoc which is learning how to learn. Thankfully, I have greats colleagues in the Institute that can help with this!
7. What is the best thing about where you work?
Jean-Christophe: Multiplicity of help you can hope and offer.
Saverio: Everything in the lab is brand new so every little step feels like a big achievement!
Martina: There is always chocolate!
Laura: The Institute is included in the Université Paris-city network which gives access to all exciting seminars occurring in the network.
Antoine: The Cochin Institute is multidisciplinary which means I learn a lot about various topics which stimulates creativity and open the way to great collaborations on various topics
8. What’s there to do outside of the lab?
Jean-Christophe: Why do you want to do things outside of the lab? Are you not happy here?
Saverio: If you work in research, try climbing. You will meet so many colleagues that you will feel like you never left the lab. Bring your friends!
Martina: Many sunsets along the Seine with a beer.
Laura: We are in Paris, a lot of culture, art, good coffee, much more.
Antoine: Paris is outside the lab, there’s plenty to do! I take care of my kids, which is a second job on itself, and spend time with my family. When I have time, I try to keep doing photography, keeping an eye and the dynamic Parisian Street Art scene.
Browse through other ‘Lab meeting’ posts featuring developmental and stem cell biology labs around the world.
In our latest SciArt profile we hear from Ivana Henry, a science communicator and illustrator with a background in developmental genetics. Ivana enjoys creating 3D visualisations of scientific concepts in molecular biology and genetics.
Where are you originally from and what do you work on now?
I was born in beautiful southern Czech Republic and studied genetics at the University of South Bohemia. After completing a PhD in developmental genetics in Bayreuth (Germany), I undertook a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden (Germany). I studied the role of planar cell polarity in tissue/organ development using the Drosophila ovary as a model. Later on, I studied how force generation moves tissues. I also developed light-sheet microscopy imaging approaches to study subcellular processes in curved epithelia. At this time, I found my love of scientific illustration and 3D visualisation and started to offer scientific illustration services. I currently work as a laboratory manager at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge in the UK.
2D illustration showing a comparison of embryo development (Tribolium vs Drosophila)
Were you always going to be a scientist?
I don’t think so. As a child I liked all school subjects, so I think I probably wanted to be a teacher first. I liked art, languages, history, literature, and my interest in biology and chemistry came later. It was at secondary school/gymnasium that I discovered Louis Pasteur, Darwin’s theory and then molecular biology and genetics. I took part in biology Olympiads and became curious about insects and plants. The idea of becoming a scientist may have started to take shape in grammar school, but I didn’t seriously consider it until I was at university.
A detail of a graphical summary indicating a difference between the expression of the circadian clock genes in the summer and in the winter. Drosophila adult is digitally painted.
And what about art- have you always enjoyed it?
Yes, I always enjoyed art. As much as I loved going to natural history museums, I also loved going to art museums. Later on, I couldn’t resist visiting art museums in various destinations when I was at scientific conferences. Art simply has been always part of my life. It started with drawing portraits of my family and led to drawing portraits of my whole gymnasium class. But I never thought I was an artist or that I’d like to become one. I was drawn to the world of molecular biology and genetics. I wanted to understand how things work. But art comes through in different forms in my scientific journey. When I was at university, I used to draw an overview of the study material for each subject I was studying. This helped me to commit newly acquired knowledge into long-term memory. I think it is important to visualise scientific knowledge and I find it easier to remember information in the form of a picture rather than as long scientific text.
Digital drawings of a kidney showing nephron and glomerulus (on the left) and a cardiomyocyte (on the right).
What and who are your most important artistic influences?
One of my favourite artists is our Czech Art Nouveau artist, Alphonse Mucha. I like his detailed graphic and illustrative style and admire his dreamy paintings of The Slavic Epic on such a large scale. I’m not sure this influence is visible in my art, but his works often serve as my inspiration. I also very much like Impressionism, especially Claude Monet and his later paintings, including the Water Lilies series as they are almost abstract art. Bright and complementary colours used by impressionists usually reflect in my colour code.
In addition, I’m often inspired by new digital approaches from contemporary 3D artists and several renowned biomedical studios creating visuals for industry / the medical field.
A metaphorical digital drawing of the physical forces that play a crucial role in shaping animal tissues and organs. This illustration shows the actomyosin filament (pink thread) that drives tissue fluidization during epithelial gap closure in embryogenesis or wound healing. Similarly, holes in old socks can be sewn together.3D visualisation of antibody molecules (heavy chains in dark blue and light chains in light blue) detecting antigens (green)
How do you make your art?
I usually draw an initial concept as a pencil sketch, creating different versions. I present these to my client and then convert the preferred version into digital form. The final digital version depends very much on the subject and what it will be used for. I usually create vector graphic illustrations for graphical summaries/abstracts, adding final digital/painting touches. I also create 3D visuals using 3D software, which are best suited for presentations, websites and cover art where you want to engage your audience.
Digital drawing of Thomas H. Morgan
Does your art influence your science at all, or are they separate worlds?
When I was doing my own research, it was probably a direct influence. I don’t know if you could call it art, but much like at university, I used drawings to summarise my findings and it helped me to put them into a bigger picture/see what direction to take next. It usually forced me to simplify and focus on the main points. Now it is more my relaxation/hobby time. I do enjoy the process of translating a key scientific message into a visual form. It is not classical art per se, but it does require certain ability to come up with an original idea that leads to a visually pleasing and self-explanatory design that attracts your audience.
3D visualization of a ‘springing’ neuron
What are you thinking of working on next?
I’m looking forward to the art and craft show at our institute, where I plan to show some of my art made with traditional painting materials. It is a hobby that forces me to leave my computer screen and gives me new ideas for digital art. I also hope to have more time to update my website and to launch more products incorporating my scientific designs.
Artworks were created using the Fluid Art technique to evoke the abstract representation of plant tissue. Both 40x40cm on deep edged canvas. These were created for the 2022 exhibition.
Dr Taiichi Tsuyama, Professor Tadashi Uemura and colleagues from Kyoto University recently published a paper in Development entitled ‘Dynamic de novo adipose tissue development during metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster‘, identifying the precursor cells that give rise to the adult fat body in Drosophila. We caught up with the authors to learn more about the story behind this work.
What were known about the origin and developmental processes of adult adipose tissue in fruit flies before your work? At the start of this project, many fly people knew that the adult fat body (AFB) exists in adult flies immediately after eclosion; however, only several studies tried to reveal the developmental aspects of the AFB in detail. Using transplantation techniques, Lawrence and Johnston (1986) reported that the AFB is mesodermal in embryonic origin. Hoshizaki et al. (1995) tackled the origin of the AFB using histochemical techniques with state-of-the-art genetic reporter lines in those days. The Hoshizaki paper has been one of the best references for the development of the AFB for about 30 years. However, it had been cited only ~30 times by 2021 despite many studies employing the mature AFB to study fat metabolism in adult flies. No previous study had identified precursor cells of AFB and characterized their cellular dynamics underlying AFB formation.
Why is this such a challenge to unravel? We think a major obstacle was the lack of genetic tools that specifically control gene expression in the AFB but not in the larval fat body (LFB). The larval fat body cells, which are generated in the embryo, persist during metamorphosis and locate near the AFB in young adult flies. Thus, genetic tools specific to the AFB are required to unravel the developmental progress of the AFB. Our interest in the adult fat body might be kind of serendipitous. One central theme in our laboratory has been how neuronal dendritic arbors achieve their complex and diverse morphological patterns and how they undergo remodeling during metamorphosis (for example, Shimono et al. 2014; Tsuyama et al. 2017). When we had attempted to study how systemic communications affect the metamorphic remodeling of dendritic trees in flies, we noticed that there were no good tools to control gene expression in larval and adult fat cells individually during metamorphosis. It prompted us to establish new genetic tools, which enabled us to visualize the developmental progression of the AFB in metamorphic flies.
Can you summarise your key findings? We identified precursor cells that give rise to the AFB and delineated their dynamic cellular behaviors at the single-cell resolution (Figure 1; Tsuyama et al. 2023). These precursor cells emigrate from the thorax with polarized cell shapes and oriented motility, and undergo a long journey to disperse to the abdomen and head. After this spatiotemporal large-scale migration, these cells adhere to each other, assembling into the AFB with a sheet-like architecture. Cell proliferation takes place continuously during and after the migration to make up one of the largest tissues in the abdomen of adult flies. Another intriguing behavior is homotypic cell fusion after the sheet formation, resulting in the formation of multinucleated adult fat cells. We also tested the roles of candidate genes and found that Ecdysone Receptor (EcR), a steroid hormone receptor critical for the metamorphic progression of insects, and the GATA-factor transcription factor Serpent support AFB organogenesis.
Adult fat body precursor cells undergo a long journey to disperse across the whole body. Schematic illustrations of AFBp migration pathways in the fly (A,B). While our data support the notion that AFBp cells originate from thoracic segments, the detailed site of origin is still unclear. (C) Timeline of fly AFB development during metamorphosis (h: hours after puparium formation). Numbers in text boxes refer to numbers in A and B.
Are you surprised that the adult fat body precursor cells have to migrate over a long-distance from the thorax to disperse across the body? Yes. The migration-based distribution strategy makes a striking contrast with those of other mesodermal organs. Larval fat cells and muscle precursors differentiate in a segmentally-repeated manner in the embryo. Adult muscles, another class of mesodermal tissue that undergo metamorphic remodeling, are also locally generated during metamorphosis. Thus, such on-site differentiation is likely to be the canonical mechanism for the broad distribution of mesodermal organs in the fly; in contrast, the long journey of the AFB precursors appears to be exceptional.
When doing the research, did you have any particular result or eureka moment that has stuck with you? We experienced at least two eureka moments in our searches for Gal4 driver stocks that can induce gene expression in the AFB. After establishing new Gal80 lines, which block Gal4 activity in larval fat cells, we tested various known fat-body Gal4 drivers with our Gal80 lines and found that the c833-Gal4 driver could visualize migrating adult fat precursor cells. Then, in our additional search for Gal4 lines related to mesodermal genes, two svp Gal4 strains exhibited persistent Gal4 expression from early in the AFB lineage onward when used with lineage tracing tools. The moment when we saw the precursor cells migrating from the thorax into the abdomen was memorable indeed (Movie 2 in Tsuyama et al. 2023).
And what about the flipside: any moments of frustration or despair? With the new Gal4-based tools, we started lots of imaging with fluorescent protein markers and got a rough picture of the developmental progression of the AFB. Then, we examined whether wildtype flies without protein markers start to deposit lipid droplets at the same stage using Nile Red (a lipid stain); however, we were puzzled to find that various wildtype flies exhibited reduction or absence of Nile Red-positive lipid droplets with variable degrees of penetrance late in metamorphosis. We suspected that fluorescent markers might affect the developmental timings of the AFB but finally found that various fly stocks, including a widely used wildtype strain Canton-S, showed disorganized or lost AFB tissues with approximately 30% (!) penetrance even in the mature adult stage. We first could not come up with such an idea that a major tissue is occasionally lost in wildtype flies. This finding prompted us to examine defects in AFB development in a collection of inbred lines, Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel, performed by Yusaku Hayashi. Our results strongly suggest that the aberrant AFB development observed in those wildtype genetic backgrounds might be due to genetic variations, and we are attempting to characterize novel candidates of genes controlling AFB development as our ongoing study.
Where will this story take the lab? Tadashi Uemura: So far as a separate project, I have been studying long-term effects of nutritional environments during larval stages on the reproduction and lifespan of adult flies. The background of that project and a potential link with our study on AFB development are the following: massive and rapid growth of juveniles is heavily influenced by the quality and quantity of nutrients consumed. The impact of the nutritional environment in the early life (the nutrition history) is not restricted to that stage; the nutrition history exerts long-term effects on adult health in the later life. I have been investigating on underlying mechanisms including identification of the key cell where the history is stored, and the AFB precursor could be one of such candidate cells.
Taiichi, what brought to you join Prof. Uemura’s lab? And what is next for you after this paper? When I was a senior undergraduate student, I studied molecular mechanisms underlying plant-microbe symbiotic interactions using Lotus japonicus (supervised by Dr. Shingo Hata; I never imagined that studying gut-microbe and plant-microbe interactions is so trending now!). Reading papers with whole plants brought up my interest on molecular genetics. I was also interested in morphogenesis of cells. At that time, Uemura-san’s lab had been studying the molecular basis of dendritic morphogenesis using fly molecular genetics. So, I thought it might be the best place to join as a graduate student. After some studies on how aberrant ATP metabolism due to mitochondrial dysfunction causes the loss of dendritic trees of sensory neurons as my doctoral project (Tsuyama et al., 2017), we started this study on the development of the AFB. Even though these projects took a whole lot of time, Uemura-san generously and continuously supported my thoughts and plans. Recently, I have been focusing on ATP metabolism by developing genetic tools to manipulate energetic metabolism and structural analyses of proteins related to ATP metabolism in Prof. Ken Yokoyama’s laboratory at Kyoto Sangyo University.
References Lawrence, P. A. and Johnston, P. (1986). Observations on cell lineage of internal organs of Drosophila. Journal of embryology and experimental morphology 91, 251–66.
Hoshizaki, D. K., Lunz, R., Johnson, W. and Ghosh, M. (1995). Identification of fat-cell enhancer activity in Drosophila melanogaster using P-element enhancer traps. Genome 38, 497–506.
Shimono, K., Fujishima, K., Nomura, T., Ohashi, M., Usui, T., Kengaku, M., Toyoda, A. and Uemura, T. (2014). An evolutionarily conserved protein CHORD regulates scaling of dendritic arbors with body size. Scientific Reports 4, 4415.
Tsuyama, T., Tsubouchi, A., Usui, T., Imamura, H. and Uemura, T. (2017). Mitochondrial dysfunction induces dendritic loss via eIF2α phosphorylation. Journal of Cell Biology 216 (3), 815–834, jcb.201604065.
Tsuyama, T., Hayashi, Y., Komai, H., Shimono, K. and Uemura, T. (2023). Dynamic de novo adipose tissue development during metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster. Development 150 (10): dev200815.
Our June webinar will be chaired by Development’s Editor-in-Chief, James Briscoe (The Crick), and features three early-career researchers investigating growth and morphogenesis. The webinar will be held using Zoom with a Q&A session after each talk.
Wednesday 21 June 2023 – 16:00 BST
Patricio Pérez-Henríquez (University of California, Riverside) ‘PIN2-mediated self-organizing transient auxin flow contributes to auxin maxima at the tip of Arabidopsis cotyledons’
Stefania Tavano (MedUni Vienna) ‘You shall not pass! How ectoderm patterning modulates lateral mesendoderm migration in the early zebrafish gastrula’
Stefan Harmansa (IBDM and Turing Center for Living Systems) ‘Morphogenesis in a growing shell’
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