Posted by dorloff, on 16 June 2011
The Cell: An Image Library is honored to be named a finalist in the website Labby Awards. Please help us win this award and vote for us at the site below. Please be patient if the site does not load right away and apologies for cross posting. Please tell your friends to vote for us as well.
http://the-scientist.com/2011/06/15/2011-labby-website-finalists/
(2 votes)
Loading...
Posted by Berta Alsina, on 16 June 2011
Closing Date: 15 March 2021
The laboratory of Berta Alsina at UPF-Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona is seeking a highly motivated student for a PhD in Inner Ear Sensory Development and Regeneration.
This PhD project will address the question on how FGF and Retinoic Acid signals regulate the development and regeneration of sensory cells and how extrinsic signals are integrated at a molecular level. We use the zebrafish as model system to address these questions. You will be combining functional experiments through transgenic fish lines, in vivo imaging of progenitors and studies of regulatory regions by computational and ChIP experiments. The project provides multidisciplinary training using state-of-the-art techniques and you will therefore be well placed for a future career in biomedical sciences.
The Department of Experimental Life Sciences at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (http://www.upf.edu/cexs/) is part a leading biomedical research center with an excellent international projection. The PRBB (www.prbb.org) , located in front of the sea and highly international, will provide you with a young, dynamic and interacting atmosphere to ensure you opportunities to discuss and learn from experts in diverse fields.
Applicants should have a BSc in biomedical science (or equivalent) amd a master degree with strong academic record to apply to competitive PhD fellowships. Applicants should be highly motivated in the field of stem cell, developmental biology and regeneration and be familiar with developmental biology techniques. Basic knowledge of programming or zebrafish manipulation will be strongly encouraged.
The position will be available from september 2011 for three years. Funding is available for the first year.
If interested please send your application (including CV and BSc academic record) by e-mail to:
Berta Alsina, PhD
Laboratory Developmental Biology
Universitat Pompeu Fabra-PRBB
Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona
Phone: 34-93-3160837
http://www.upf.edu/devbiol/projectes/Alsina_lab.html
(No Ratings Yet)Loading...
Posted by guojun, on 16 June 2011
The fifth international EMT (epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition) meeting will be held this year from Oct 10 to Oct 13 in the beautiful city state of Singapore. The meeting is co-organized by Jean Paul Thiery and Erik Thompson. It will cover recent development in the EMT field, ranging from basic molecular and developmental mechanisms to translational research (cancer, stem cell and clinical applications).
EMT/MET is a fairly common phenomenon in animal development. For those of you working on basic developmental biology, but interested in having a wider perspective of your research that funding agencies love to hear, this meeting will be a great opportunity.
Conference Website: www.emtmeeting.org
Registration: Early Bird Registration closes on 30 June 2011. Regular registration opens from 1 July.
(3 votes)Loading...
Posted by Eva Amsen, on 15 June 2011
I’m currently in Toronto for the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), and you can expect to find updates about the meeting at various places. Of course we’ll cover it here on the Node itself, but we’re also using Twitter to share and follow news from the meeting.
The ISSCR meeting has a wonderful media policy, where the embargoes end at the start of each talk, so you can write about them as they happen, and the meeting organisers actively encourage blogging and tweeting. There is an official “Twitter hashtag” for the meeting which you can use to follow along with updates from people who are at the meeting. (That even works if you don’t use Twitter yourself, so don’t worry if you’re not an active social media user.)
This is a link to a list of tweets from people writing about the ISSCR meeting:
all recent tweets tagged #ISSCR2011. (Newest ones are on top.)
I will be using both the Node’s and Development‘s Twitter accounts to post updates as appropriate. You can find those here:
the Node on Twitter
Development on Twitter
And finally, for the official word on the meeting, the ISSCR has its own Twitter account.
(2 votes)Loading...
Posted by Guillermo Oliver, on 14 June 2011
Closing Date: 15 March 2021
POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS are available to study the cellular and molecular mechanisms controlling the development of the lymphatic vasculature and its functional roles in normal and pathological conditions including obesity and cancer using available mouse models. Highly motivated individuals who recently obtained a PhD or MD degree and have a strong background in molecular, cancer and developmental biology are encouraged to apply. Interested individuals should send their curriculum vitae, a brief description of their research interests, and the names of three references to:
(No Ratings Yet)Loading...
Posted by Erin M Campbell, on 13 June 2011
The Drosophila ovary is stunningly beautiful, and a playground of wonderful biological questions. Within the germarium alone, developmental biologists can look at asymmetric division, stem cells and their niches, cell migration, and cell specification. A recent paper in Development describes a technique allowing the in vitro imaging of a fruit fly ovary, and opens the door for further studies of development and stem cells.
The Drosophila ovary is composed of about 15 ovarioles, which each houses an organ called the germarium that serves as the assembly line for egg production. In the germarium, two types of stem cells play important roles – germline stem cells and follicle stem cells. Germline stem cells divide to kick off the egg production process, while follicle stem cells divide to provide several different types of ovarian follicle cells. A recent paper by Morris and Spradling describes a technique allowing the live imaging of a developing follicle. After dissecting and imaging an ovariole in culture, Morris and Spradling were able to monitor cell division, orientation, and movement during follicle generation for a prolonged period. This technique allows biologists to address many unanswered questions about follicle generation and stem cell biology, as both populations of stem cells can be imaged simultaneously and in their own niches.
Images show a cartoon and high-resolution images of a fruit fly germarium, with germline stem cells (GSC) marked in pink and follicle cells in green (FSC are follicle stem cells). BONUS!! For a cool movie of a germarium showing cell divisions and dynamic movement, click here.
For a more general description of this image, see my imaging blog within EuroStemCell, the European stem cell portal.
Morris, L., & Spradling, A. (2011). Long-term live imaging provides new insight into stem cell regulation and germline-soma coordination in the Drosophila ovary Development, 138 (11), 2207-2215 DOI: 10.1242/dev.065508
(1 votes)Loading...
Posted by the Node, on 13 June 2011
If you take a look at our Facebook and Twitter pages today, you might notice that they look slightly different. Our regular logo is temporarily replaced with a special logo to celebrate our upcoming first birthday. That’s right – it’s been one year already!
Our official birthday is on June 22nd, and if you check the Node that day, we’ll have a small virtual present for all our readers, as well as a quick look back over the past year.
(5 votes)Loading...
Posted by Eva Amsen, on 9 June 2011
After a heart attack, heart muscle is irreparably damaged, but a paper in Nature now reports that adult mouse hearts have a source of progenitor cells that can form new muscle cells after heart injury.
A few years ago, studies showed that embryonic epicardial progenitor cells contribute to the cardiomyocyte lineage in developing mouse hearts. These cells were marked by the expression of a key embryonic epicardial gene, Wt1, but Wt1 is not expressed in adult tissues.
The group of Paul Riley at UCL now reactivated Wt1 expression in adult mouse hearts by priming them with thymosin β4 (Tβ4) and inducing injury. This pointed to an adult pool of progenitor cells, marked by Wt1, which could form new cardiomyocytes after myocardial infarction. What’s more, this process was upregulated in response to Tβ4. A few years ago, Riley’s group already showed that Tβ4 also induces formation of blood vessels from epicardial progenitors.
In a video interview with The Scientist, Riley summarized his paper, and emphasized how they built upon previous studies in embryonic heart development to find this new source of adult myocardial progenitors.
Repairing hearts from thescientistllc on Vimeo.
“The key point for us has always been moving back to embryonic development and identifying cells that are key to formation of the organ, that would then translate to repair in the adult.” – Paul Riley (from the interview above)
How exactly Tβ4 induces increased Wt1 expression and cardiomyocyte formation isn’t yet known, but could this be a new therapeutic for heart attack patients? Unfortunately, Tβ4 is not the most practical drug. It would need to be administered before a heart attack, so could only be used as a preventive measure for people who already know they’re at risk, and it’s not available as a pill – only as injection. But a big step toward any form of therapy would be to find out how Tβ4 works at a molecular level to differentiate the progenitor cells to cardiomyocytes upon injury, and, as Riley mentions in the video above, that will be the next step in their research.
update: F1000/The Scientist have some more videos from this lab on their blog.
(1 votes)Loading...
Posted by Eva Amsen, on 8 June 2011
In December we asked people to share how they moved from research to a career away from the lab bench. Since then, we’ve heard from a number of people, and a few stories are still coming in. Here’s the list so far, with current affiliations:
Keep up and blog on – my route to the Node
Eva Amsen – Community manager for the Node and Online Editor for Development
A career in publishing – a developing story
Jane Alfred – Executive Editor for Development
Educational game designer: where biology, games, and technology meet
Nicole Husain – educational game designer at Spongelab Interactive
From the bench to the science centre
Sarah Gibb – Science and Interpretation Officer at Glasgow Science Centre
A career as editor
Vivian Siegel – Director of the Center for Science Communication at Vanderbilt University, and Editor-in-Chief of Disease Models and Mechanisms.
My transition to patent law
Michael Belliveau – Patent Attorney at Clark & Elbing
My journey to scientific editing
Kara Cerveny – scientific editor at Cell
My journey from bench scientist to clinical ethicist
Michael Szego – fellow in clinical and organizational ethics at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics
How fate determined my career as a science journalist
Claire Ainsworth – science journalist
Keeping an open mind – a scientist’s quest for positive change
Sobia Hamid – entrepreneur
(2 votes)Loading...
Posted by Seema Grewal, on 7 June 2011
Here are the highlights from the current issue of Development:
In XX female mammals, inactivation of one X chromosome during development equalises the levels of X-linked gene products in females with those in males. Expression of the Xist gene from one of the two X chromosomes produces a non-coding RNA that coats and silences the chromosome from which it is transcribed. But how does Xist RNA induce chromosome silencing? XistIVS, an Xist mutant generated in mice by gene targeting, may help to answer this question, suggest Takashi Sado and co-workers (see p. 2649). In embryos carrying the XistIVS allele, they report, XistIVS is differentially upregulated, and its mutated transcript coats the X chromosome in cis in embryonic and extra-embryonic tissues, but X-inactivation is incomplete. This partial X-inactivation seems to be unstable, and the mutated X chromosome is reactivated in some extra-embryonic tissues and possibly in early epiblastic cells, suggesting that the RNA encoded by XistIVS is dysfunctional. Further studies of this unique mutation could thus reveal exactly how Xist RNA induces chromosome silencing.
In the vertebrate peripheral nervous system, Schwann cells form the myelin sheath, the multilayered membrane that insulates axons and allows the rapid propagation of electrical signals. Now, on p. 2673, William Talbot and colleagues report that, as in zebrafish, the orphan G-protein-coupled receptor Gpr126 is essential for myelination and other aspects of peripheral nerve development in mammals. The researchers show that a mutation in Gpr126 causes a severe congenital hypomyelinating peripheral neuropathy in mice and reduces the expression of differentiated Schwann cell markers. In addition, Gpr126 mutant mice lack Remak bundles (the non-myelinating Schwann cells associated with small calibre axons), and exhibit delayed sorting of large calibre axons by Schwann cells, suggesting that the Schwann cells are arrested at the promyelinating stage. Finally, they report, Gpr126 mutant mice develop abnormalities in the perineurium (the connective tissue that surrounds each nerve fibre bundle). Given these results, the researchers suggest that Gpr126 might represent a target for the treatment of demyelinating diseases of nerves.
Embryonic patterning is insensitive to embryo size. Consequently, despite size variations among individuals in a population, their body parts are proportionate or ‘scaled’. But how is scaling achieved and do similar mechanisms control within-species and between-species scaling? On p. 2741, Jun Ma and colleagues use embryos from Drosophila melanogaster lines selected for large and small egg volumes to investigate the within-species scaling of the Bicoid (Bcd) morphogen gradient. They show that large embryos contain more maternal bcd mRNA than small embryos and, as a result, have higher anterior nuclear Bcd concentrations. This difference in the anterior production rate of Bcd leads to the scaling properties of the Bcd gradient. That is, in broad regions of large and small embryos, similar Bcd concentrations are found at the same relative embryonic positions. Thus, propose the researchers, unlike between-species scaling, which probably involves species-specific differences in Bcd diffusion and/or decay rates, within-species Bcd gradient scaling depends on the scaling of Bcd production rates with embryo volume.
In epithelial tissues, the polarisation of cells within the plane of the tissue helps to coordinate morphogenesis. The Dachsous (Ds) and Frizzled (Fz) signalling systems play key roles in establishing and maintaining this planar polarity but how these systems interact is unclear. Now, on p. 2751, Seth Donoughe and Stephen DiNardo report that the ds and fz genes contribute separately to planar polarity in the Drosophila ventral epidermis. The cuticle of fly larvae is covered with denticles, protrusions that help the larvae move. To investigate how this polarised pattern of denticles is established, the researchers developed a semi-automated method that measures the orientation of individual denticles in the ventral epidermis. Their analyses of various mutants show that ds and fz contribute independently to polarity, that they act over spatially distinct domains, and that the Ds but not the Fz system polarises tissue equally well across small and large field sizes. These and other results provide new insights into the planar polarity machinery.
Numerous transcription factors regulate the generation and migration of neurons during the development of the central nervous system but the co-factors that support their activity remain unclear. Here (p. 2823), Soo-Kyung Lee and co-workers identify the LIM-only protein LMO4 as a co-activator of the proneural transcription factor neurogenin 2 (NGN2) in the developing mouse cortex. The researchers show that LMO4 and its binding partner nuclear LIM interactor (NLI) form a multi-protein transcription complex with NGN2. This complex, they report, is recruited to the E-box-containing enhancers of NGN2 target genes, which regulate various aspects of cortical development, and activates NGN2-mediated transcription. Consistent with this finding, the researchers demonstrate that neuronal differentiation is impaired in the cortex of Lmo4-null embryos, whereas expression of LMO4 facilitates NGN2-mediated migration and differentiation of neurons in the embryonic cortex. These results suggest that the LMO4:NLI module promotes the acquisition of cortical neuronal identities by forming a complex with NGN2 and subsequently activating NGN2-dependent gene expression.
The conversion of embryonic stem (ES) cells into haematopoietic precursors in vitro could have important clinical applications, but strategies that achieve this feat usually require the use of feeder cells or serum. Now, Po-Min Chiang and Philip Wong describe a method for converting murine ES cells into endothelial cells and blood precursors at low cell densities in a serum-free defined medium (see p. 2833). The researchers identify a set of cytokines and small molecules that are necessary and sufficient to convert ES cells into definitive haematopoietic precursors within 6 days, and by tracking the fate of single progenitors with time-lapse video microscopy they follow this stepwise differentiation process. The determination of haemogenic fate, they report, occurs as early as day 4 of this differentiation protocol. Moreover, BMP4 plays essential time-sensitive roles in both angiogenesis and haemogenesis. This protocol, the researchers suggest, could thus serve as a framework for future studies of human haematopoiesis and for the development of treatments for haematopoietic disorders.
As part of the Evolutionary crossroads in developmental biology series, David McClay introduces the sea urchins and discuss how studies of sea urchins have contributed significantly to our understanding of the developmental mechanisms used to build a deuterstome organism.
See the Primer article on p. 2639
The recent Keystone Symposium on Evolutionary Developmental Biology presented an opportunity to showcase the latest research findings in this multidisciplinary field and, as reviewed by Haag and Lenski, revealed a growing relevance of this research to both basic and biomedical biology.
See the Meeting Review on p. 2633
(1 votes)Loading...
