I am from Chile, a country located along the extreme southwestern coast of South America, a beautiful land of happy and courageous people, with an admirable geography however from time to time, some naturally events remind us how small is  our human scale compared with the Mother Earth that gave us life, (“we are children of rigor” as well-said JM, a famous Chilean reporter).

I tell this because my scientific visit in Germany coincided, for better or for worse, with the huge earthquake that hit my country last February, I came to Germany only two days before this catastrophe !, thus my first actions in this new country were trying to get news of my family, friends and colleagues. Meanwile, one of the major casualties of the earthquake was Science. Specifically, the laboratory of the Dr. Miguel Allende (CGC, Universidad de Chile) where I am making my PhD thesis, lost nearly all equipment and suffered substantial damages to the structure of the building. More serously, irreplaceable reagents, stocks, samples and experiments were lost. For me, it is very hard as a Chilean scientist to see my colleagues and friends, who are helpless in all of this, forced to star from square again,… it was very sad for me.

As you may suspect, the beginning of my stay was full of worry and anguish, but at the same time, with the fascination of being in a country like Germany, where the lifestyle and the organization of things is quite different from those known to me in Chile and other South American countries. My first internship was in the laboratory of Dr. Clemens Grabher, at the Institute of Toxicology and Genetics (ITG), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (http://www-itg.fzk.de/itg/itg_home.html ), where I had an excellent welcome. Moreover, I had the opportunity to collaborate with other groups such as the the laboratory of Dr. Urban Liebel (http://liebel-lab.fzk.de/liebelwiki/index.php/Main_Page ), where I used “first-class” equipment for my experiments, being a major contribution to my scientific experience. Finished in Karlsruhe, a stay was generated in the laboratory of Dra. Virginie Lecaudey, in the University of Freiburg (http://www.biologie.uni-freiburg.de/data/bio1/lecaudey/), a beautiful city from which I was delighted to come. The welcome here has been spectacular, coinciding with the celebration of my birthday for first time in Europe; and also, allowing me to continue with important experiments for my thesis. Next in my scientific journey through Germany,  I`m now in the laboratory of Dr. Joachim Wittbrodt at the University of Heidelberg (http://www.izn.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=261), where I will be able to make relevant experiments for my work in a great zebrafish lab, living in other beautiful German city and enjoying the FIFA World Cup, where I hope that Chile (and my host country Germany) have a good participation !.

For me, making these visits is an unforgettable experience in both the professional and personal sense. First, I could test and compare “in situ” and “in vivo” how the science is in developed countries, and get to know the availability of the resources and the high level of organization that these laboratories have. However, this experience also made me notice the large differences in sciences between countries like Chile and Germany, in the level of resources, the proper use of them and the full support of the scientific career. Personally, this has been a culture and scientific learning experience, even being out of my country in difficult times.  But over time I realized increasingly the importance of my stay here, because I understood how much I can learn and then apply it in my country, by helping in the education and development of it.

Finally, I want to thank all the institutions that helped me, either to fund my trip, as well as the research and their laboratories, who hosted me and gave me the opportunity to live this experience, and do things that in my country I could not have done.

I would like to finish this story, with greetings to my lab partners and my tutor Miguel Allende in Chile (my full support) and give them the strength and encouragement in the rebuilding of our lab !…for them and the chilean people, an extract of Pablo Neruda`s Poem “Hymn and return”:

…y mirando tu ilustre y solitaria espuma
un ramo litoral tejeré a tu belleza.

Patria, mi patria
toda rodeada de agua combatiente
y nieve combatida,
en ti se junta el águila al azufre,
y en tu antártica mano de armiño y de zafiro
una gota de pura luz humana
brilla encendiendo el enemigo cielo.

Guarda tu luz, oh patria!,
mantén
tu dura espiga de esperanza
en medio
del ciego aire temible.
En tu remota tierra ha caído toda esta luz difícil,
este destino de los hombres
que te hace defender una flor misteriosa
sola, en la inmensidad de América dormida.

…and looking your illustrious and lonely foam
a coastal bouquet I`ll knit to your beauty.

Homeland, my homeland
all sorrounded by combatant water
and fought snow,
in your eagle and sulfur combines,
and in your Antartic hand of mink and  sapphire
a drop of pure human light
shine lighting the enemy sky.

Save your light, oh homeland!
keep your hard spike of hope
in the midst of the fearsome blind air.
In your remote land all this difficult light has dropped,
this fate of men
that make you defend a mysterious flower
alone, in the vastness of America asleep.

Cristian A. Undurraga S.
A curious man by nature…and
PhD student in Molecular/Celular Biology and Neurosciences
Center for Genomics of the Cell
Laboratorio de Biología del Desarrollo
Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad de Chile
http://www.mileniocgc.cl/
Twitter: @cundurraga

(3 votes)

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On one of the walls of the Royal Institution in London is the following quote:

“Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break” – Earl Wilson

Coffee breaks are not just a good source of information in office communication, but also in science communication. In the mid-nineties, Swiss art curator Hans Ulrich Obrist organized a conference for artists and scientists in which the entire conference program was replaced with one big coffee break. He had noticed that at a conference, the interesting discussion happen during the coffee breaks – not necessarily at the presentations themselves.

We’d like you to think of the Node as a way to spend your coffee breaks. As you’re reading papers or doing experiments, you learn a lot about the science of developmental biology, but not so much about the scientists. To get the latest news about funding or hear which meeting you might want to attend next, to find out the day-to-day practices of other labs or hear some entertaining stories from the field, you need to get up from behind the bench and talk to people. With the Node, you don’t even have to get up anymore: you can roll your chair over to your laptop, and visit the site. Once you’re all caught up and ready to get back to work, you can catch up on recent papers using the table of contents of developmental biology journals listed in the sidebar.

As with any coffee break conversation, you’re not just listening to others speaking, but you can have your say as well. If you create an account on the Node, we’ll then make you an author of the site, and you can add you own posts. Have a look at the help page for more information, and feel free to ask us any questions.

(1 votes)

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(This was essentially written by Dr. Chris Gordon – see bottom for details, though “Heather” posted it here.)

Approximately 320 participants attended the second joint meeting of both the Japanese and French societies for developmental biology at the Institut Pasteur on May 26^th to 28^th, 2010. Of these, sixty Japanese developmental biologists made the voyage to mingle with their French colleagues, drawing on a long-standing and fruitful exchange of scientific trainees and expertise. The Sasakawa Fondation and the Riken Center for Developmental Biology provided lodging for the Japanese participants in Paris, which probably helped with the numbers.

Margaret Buckingham (Institut Pasteur, Paris) and Shinichi Aizawa (Riken Center for Developmental Biology, Kobe), two of the organizers, welcomed all attendees to the conference, entitled “From Cells to Organs”. Each day was divided into two non-concurrent major sessions which were grouped loosely according to theme, and for the first two days, interspersed with two alternate poster sessions. These were so many (168) that even the ample time allotted during coffee breaks, daily catered buffet lunches and evening wine and cheese did not seem to be enough to do them justice. Full presentation abstracts for both talks and posters are found here.

The oral presentations represented an even balance of junior and senior scientists from near and far, all of whom presented in a perfectly comprehensible, transcultural English.

Overall, diverse models were represented. For the posters, the technical approaches were even more diverse and impressive, but too numerous to summarize. Among the talks, models ranged from engineering (Yoshihiro Morishita [Kyushu University, Fukuoaka]) and mathematical approaches (Kenji Matsuno [Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo] ; Hiroki Nishida [Osaka University, Osaka]; Aki Kimura [National Institute of Genetics, Mishima])  to plants (Alexis Peaucelle [INRA, Versailles]) to a broad variety of invertebrate and vertebrate animal systems. For example, Masaaki Yamaguchi (Kanazawa University, Kanazawa) and Julien Behague (Institut Jacques Monod, Paris)  spoke about highly conserved transcription factors in the sand dollar Peronella japonica and the annelid Platynereis dumerilii respectively, the study of which uncover evolutionary implications for body plan homologies among Bilaterian clades. Reiko Kuroda (University of Tokyo, Tokyo) presented work on blastomeric symmetry-breaking in the chiral snail, Lymnaeia stagnalis.

Other highlights from the talks, which were all of an excellent standard and most of which presented at least some unpublished work, are summarized below in no particular order, to represent the flavour of the conference.

Atsuo Kawahara (National Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, Osaka) reported his work on the role of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) signalling in zebrafish heart morphogenesis. From a mutagenesis screen, a mutation was identified in spns2, an S1P transporter, in animals with bifid hearts – a phenotype resembling that previously described for an S1P receptor. Knockdown of spns2, or of a sphingosine kinase, specifically in the extraembryonic yolk syncytial layer, also produced cardia bifida. Kawahara’s elegant genetic manipulations suggest that S1P, released by the yolk, signals to migrating cardiac cells in the embryonic tissue above, ensuring coalescence of cardiac progenitors in the midline. For background, see this publication.

Yuuta Moriyama (University of Tokyo, Tokyo) presented data suggesting that in the medaka mutant Double anal fin (Da), in which externally visible dorsal trunk structures become ventralized, a transposon insertion adjacent to zic1 and zic4 disrupts the function of a somitic enhancer for the zic gene pair. Moriyama’s work indicates that via zic genes, the somite plays a key role in patterning a range of tissues in the dorsoventral trunk axis.

Otoliths are biomineralized crystals attached to cilia within the zebrafish inner ear. Their mass contributes to ciliary deflection, leading to transduction of signals for hearing and balance. Julien Vermot (Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, Illkirch) has used advanced imaging techniques to shed light on how precursor particles of the otolith accumulate within the cavity of the inner ear. Although random diffusion predominates in the central portion of the cavity, local currents are created by beating cilia near the otoliths at the poles of the cavity, thereby attracting particles to the growing crystal. Also, Vermot demonstrated that normal otolith formation is dependent on these cilia, by laser ablation of cilia or knockdown of their components. For background, see this publication.

Mutations in RPGRIP1L, a gene encoding a ciliary protein, have previously been detected in patients with Joubert and Meckel syndromes. Sylvie Schneider-Maunoury (Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris) described her recent analysis of olfactory bulb and telencephalic defects in Rpgrip1l-null mice. Concomitant with ciliary defects in forebrain neuroepithelial cells, the mutant mice display a dorsal expansion of ventral telencephalon domains. Gli3, an effector of Hedgehog signalling, regulates dorsoventral patterning of the anterior telencephalon. Schneider-Maunoury presented data suggesting that the Rpgrip1l-null forebrain phenotype is mediated by a reduction of the repressor form of Gli3.

Another layer of complexity in the transmission of Hedgehog signals was discussed by Pascal Thérond (Institut de Biologie du Developpement et du Cancer, Nice). Using the Drosophila epithelial wing disc as a model, Thérond showed that there are apically- and basolaterally-secreted pools of Hedgehog, with Hedgehog activity from the apical pool extending further into the anterior compartment of the disc than that of the basolateral pool. This long-range apical activity is enhanced by the glypican Dally, an extracellular matrix protein, and by Notum, a hydrolase that releases Dally into the apical lumen. The specific readout in cells receiving Hedgehog may be the result of integration of both apical and basolateral inputs. For more information, see this recent publication.

These last presentations were timely in the light of feature articles from that particular issue of Development and also tied in well with a number of other talks and posters concerning Hedgehog signalling effects.

Among these, Koji Tamura (Tohoku University, Sendai) revisited the contribution of the zone of polarizing activity (ZPA) to digit cartilage. As shown by chick-quail chimera fate-mapping, hindlimb digit IV cartilage is directly derived from the Sonic hedgehog-producing ZPA, whereas in the forelimb, no cartilage comes directly from ZPA cells. Heterotopic grafting experiments demonstrated that hindlimb posterior digit identity can be imposed in the forelimb, but not the converse, and only during a restricted time window. A discussion ensued about digit homologies between theropod dinosaurs and birds, and during the questions, amphibians and mammals.

Yoshiko Takahashi (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Nara) also used the chick embryo to explore the responsiveness of sub-populations of neural crest cells to environmental signals during their dissemination through the body, using the sympatho-adrenal (SA) sublineage as a model. Takahashi reported that SA cells respond to environmental signals that act first on guidepost tissues which thereby attract the neural crest. Subsequently, while sympathetic precursors remain behind to form ganglia, the adrenal precursors must carry on. SA progenitors are electroporated first with an elegant Tol2 transposon construction that mediates stable transgenesis of GFP expression, a helper plasmid with a transposase, and a tet-on inducible dominant-negative receptor. Upon judicious doxycycline stimulation, signal transduction is interrupted only after the labelled cells arrive at the level of the sympathetic ganglion, and the adrenal precursors no longer colonize their target.

Philippe Herbomel (Institut Pasteur, Paris) presented some exquisite examples of in vivo imaging in zebrafish embryos. Using embryos in which vascular cells were labelled with GFP, Herbomel demonstrated how hematopoietic stem cells arise within the aortic endothelium of the fish, in contrast with amniotes. Individual stem cells bend out from the endothelium, away from the lumen of the aorta, and pinch off. They subsequently pass through the underlying mesenchyme to enter the axial vein and go on to seed caudal hematopoietic tissue. Runx1, a key regulator of the emergence of hematopoietic stem cells, is required for this endothelial to hematopoietic transition. Further details can be found in this recent publication.

On the second day, during the general assembly meeting of the SFBD, its new website (http://www.sfbd.fr/) was launched and introduced by Stephan Zaffran. Douglas Sipp, representing the International Society for Developmental Biology also took the stage to encourage the contribution or support of new ideas relative to improving meeting attendance and participation by developmental biologists around the world, before the next ISDB conference in Cancun, Mexico, in 2013.

The meeting ended on a cheerful note with the distribution of poster awards, chosen with some difficulty among the many worthy possibilities by the members of the organizing committee. Meeting sponsors enabled these prizes to not only be a public honour, but to be attached to some prize money. These went to the following presentations:

Glenda Comai (Schedl group, Nice): Functional study of the role of the novel tumor suppressor gene WTX during mouse embryonic development

Mathieu Gouzi (Grapin-Botton group, Lausanne): Role of Neurogenin3 in migration of pancreatic endocrine cells during development

Benjamin Bonneau (Gillet group, Lyon): Member of Bcl2 family Nrz controls yolk cytoskeleton dynamics via regulation of calcium fluxes during zebrafish early development

Toshihiro Banjo (Ogura group, Sendai): MicroRNA-21 expression triggered by heartbeat contributes to zebrafish cardiac valve formation.

Finally, and importantly, the 2^nd joint meeting of the British and French Societies for Developmental Biology will be in Nice, France, (yes, that’s the Côte d’Azur) from 3-6 septembre 2011. (The first was in 2003.) Hope to see you there!

—

About the authors:

Chris Gordon is a postdoc in the “Embryology and genetic architecture of human neural crest malformations” group, INSERM unit 781, in Paris, France.

Heather Etchevers is not quite sure what she is when it’s translated into English, but she’s tenured with the INSERM and they let her carry out research. She worked in the same group as Chris until June, 2010, when she moved to the INSERM unit 910 in Marseille, France.

(2 votes)

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It is close to three years since my first visit to the ‘Land of the royal kings and gold, tigers, cobras and elephants’ – INCREDIBLE INDIA!! Yes, incredible in every way with its friendly people, deep-rooted culture, heritage and history, natural beauty and scientific accomplishments, the most recent being in the area of space research with the discovery of water on Mars.

In the south of India in the State of Karnataka is the city of Bangalore, a bustling metropolis often called the IT capital or silicon valley of India. To the north of the city, is the famous Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), one of the oldest research institutions in the country. It houses the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), a premier research unit supported by the Government of India and situated on a beautiful, sprawling campus spread over an attractive 20-acre plot surrounded by forests and green fields. NCBS is known for its advanced research on biochemistry, biophysics and bioinformatics, genetics and development, cellular organization and signaling, neurobiology, theory and modeling of biological systems, ecology and evolution.

NCBS has excellent facilities for academics and modern research. There are more than 20 well-equipped laboratories and a separate Central Imaging and Flow Facility. Each laboratory functions as an independent, self-sufficient community or unit with its own traditional approach, although the overall strategy is highly integrated and collaborative. It also supports recreational activities with a well equipped sports complex and swimming pool that ensures a pleasant and healthy environment for research.

Since autumn 2007, I worked as a visiting student at the laboratory of Prof. Gaiti Hasan, a reputed research scientist with range of international publications to credit, whose focus of work addresses the role of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor signaling in cellular and systematic physiology. This past experience and moreover the encouragement and support offered to international candidates convinced me to pursue my first Post-Doctoral training at this reputed institution.  Moreover, the Journal of Development has kindly supported my visit to India by awarding a Travelling Fellowship. Currently, I hold a full-time position as a ‘Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellow’ under the supervision of Prof. Hasan. Typically, new lab entrants receive a warm welcome and are considered members of what is known as ‘our unique family”. This is more than apt since for many researchers it’s a second home that supports advanced research and at the same time helps balance family life which is equally important.

The lab hosts several weekly events: Lab-meets on Saturdays to report individual research data, Journal Scientific Club on Tuesdays to understand the latest achievements of the specific research area in question such as, molecular aspects and genetics of neurodegeneration, role of Ins1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors in this phenomenon, Ca²⁺-signalling via STIM and Orai proteins in excitable cells, etc. NCBS also hosts weekly research seminars by outstanding scientists representing premier research institutions worldwide. I have been fortunate to participate in some of these sessions that have helped provide me with a broader perspective to the multi-disciplinary nuances of research.

Amidst all this serious work is the fun side of lab-life with team outings, lunch get-togethers and the ‘Bollywood’ specials noted for its colourful song and dance routines!

The overall experience has been truly enriching and I look forward to the year ahead. I hope to share with you in the coming weeks and months more interesting snippets from my research life at NCBS and India.

Cheers

Tetyana

(2 votes)

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The recent joint meeting of the British Societies for Developmental Biology (BSDB) and Cell Biology (BSCB) in Warwick provided an exciting opportunity to catch a glimpse of the future of these two fields. “Old” questions of how cell fates are allocated during development are now being tackled with new technologies and new knowledge of how gene expression can be regulated.

Since I made the decision to write this report after the conference was over, I’m outlining only a few talks which I have attended and found interesting. I’ve written this in three parts. Part one covers some of the presentations on transcriptional regulation, the second part will be about transcription factor networks, and part number three covers several topics which do not fit into the first two categories: Stem cells, limb development and evo-devo.

Part 1: Transcriptional Regulation

Mike Levine (University of California, USA) opened the conference by presenting his lab’s work on the suppression of transcriptional noise during dorsal-ventral patterning of the early Drosophila embryo. One mechanism they have found to underly such robustness is the deployment of multiple enhancers for the same expression patterns, so-called “shadow enhancers”. Levine also reported that rapid transcriptional responses to signals can involve a mechanism in which RNA polymerase II is kept in a paused state near the promoter, ready to receive a ‘go’ signal. It remains to be seen if these mechanisms are utilized in other systems to confer robustness and responsiveness.

To map the location, density and orientation of paused RNA polymerase II (Pol II), John Lis (Cornell University, USA) introduced a recently developed method called “GRO (Genome-wide nuclear Run-On) -seq”, which uses nuclear run-on followed by large-scale parallel sequencing. The analysis of these parameters in mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells and isogenic embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) uncovered peaks of paused Pol II on both the sense and antisense strands close to the transcription start site in CpG-associated promoters. Lis pointed out that the function of the antisense polymerase remains unclear, but it presumably acts by regulating transcription orientation and efficiency. He also explained why the presence of paused polymerase is interesting for us developmental biologists: The comparison of the Pol II profiles in ES cells and MEFs revealed that many genes differ in their Pol II state in the two cell types.

Bob Kingston (Harvard Medical School, USA) discussed how Polycomb Group (PcG) genes are involved in regulating the changes in Hox gene expression during differentiation of human ES cells. They identified a region between HOXD11 and HOXD12 (“D11.12”), which is H3K27 methylated, occupied by PcG proteins, and shows changes in nucleosome occupancy upon differentiation. Such an arrangement is characteristic of Drosophila Polycomb response elements (PREs), cis-regulatory sequences required for PcG mediated repression. In a series of experiments they could show that specific sequences in this region are required for PcG-mediated repressive activity of a D11.12 reporter, and that this repression was maintained during differention, thereby identifying the first PRE-like element in a mammalian system. Furthermore, the endogenous D11.12 locus is dynamically occupied by PcG proteins in differentiating hESCs. Whether or not this region is required for embryonic development remains to be determined.

Peter Fraser (The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK) showed us what transcriptional regulation looks like in the nucleus: He presented his team’s work on intra- and interchromosomal interactions during transcription. In mouse erythroid cells, they encountered sub-nuclear foci highly enriched in active RNA Pol II, so-called “Pol II factories”. Transcriptionally active genes up-regulated by the transcription factor Klf1 in the definitive erythroid lineage, were predominantly present in the same foci, together with large amounts of Klf1 protein. They found that Klf1 is required for this clustering of co-regulated genes. Fraser’s work encourages us to refrain from thinking of transcriptional regulation as a linear phenomenon, but we should rather start imagining the process in its 3-dimensional spatial, nuclear context, in which specific transcription factories cluster regulatory proteins and their co-regulated targets, to optimize the coordination of transcriptional control. These factories preferentially transcribe a specific network of genes and might be a major factor underlying tissue-specific chromosome organization.

More about the discussion of transcription factor networks as it took place in this meeting will follow in part two.

(1 votes)

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There are many ways to write a collaborative research article, review, grant or conference proposal. One of the most comfortable frameworks when there are more than two of you actually doing the writing, and especially if you’re scattered on different continents, is Google Docs.

Documents in progress such as your article text, abstract, cover letter to the editor and your figure legends, are uploaded in a confidential manner. One single, centralized version can then be modified in real time by anyone you invite, confidentially, to edit it. The online editor greatly resembles Microsoft Word or OpenOffice, and like the latter, is completely free of charge. Unlike OpenOffice, it doesn’t reside in your own computer, though. The major advantage is not having to merge versions, when your slowest collaborator gets back to you with revisions to version 6 and you are already on versions 10 and 11 with your more responsive team members.

The instigator of the article or grant application would do best to set up a Google account, if they do not already have one because they use Gmail, or Google Reader for their RSS feeds. (If you don’t know what an RSS feed is, never fear, watch this space in the future. RSS feeds are not immediately necessary for writing an article, except when you want to be sure that you are including the absolutely latest relevant primary source articles. We’ll show you how.)

A similar mechanism exists for multiple people working on spreadsheets (for your phenotype tables or five-year budgets), and it is now also possible to make drawings in this centralized, updated-in-real-time way. I have yet to try this possibility. However, Google Docs also accepts as an upload any sort of document – presentations, PDFs, images – that can subsequently be downloaded and examined by all your collaborators from this one centralized source. It’s already an advantage, and I’m certain it will get better and better.

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(Originally published in Development)

In February 2010, in the beautiful setting of Wiston House, nestled at the foot of the hilly South Downs in Sussex, UK, The Company of Biologists, the not-for-profit organisation that publishes Development, held the inaugural meeting of their new workshop series dedicated to biological research. The meeting was titled ‘Neural Stem Cells in Development and Disease’, and was organised by Kate Storey, Professor of Neural Development at the College of Life Sciences of the University of Dundee, and Silvia Marino, Professor of Neuropathology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. They were also assisted by the workshop chairman, François Guillemot, Programme Leader of the Division of Molecular Neurobiology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. The scientific scope and themes of this workshop are covered in more detail in a meeting review published in Development but, to get a glimpse behind the scenes, we talked to Kate Storey and Silvia Marino and asked them about the organisation of the ‘Neural Stem Cells in Development and Disease’ workshop.

Silvia Marino (left) and Kate Storey (right) with workshop chair François Guillemot.

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When we did a survey among attendees of the British Society for Development Biology meeting in April, we asked what topics you would like to discuss on the Node. One of the top answers was careers, so we’ll be sure to include posts about opportunities in developmental biology, and we hope you’ll join us to share some of your stories and tips, or let us know if your lab is hiring.

To start you off, here is an uplifting story about an unconventional entry into a developmental biology career.

Earlier this month, the Carnegie Institution for Science in Baltimore awarded one of their staff members, Dianne Williams, with the Carnegie Service to Science Award. Dianne joined the institute in 1983, not as a research student, but as a lab dishwasher as part of a work program for inner city youth. She then started preparing fly food for Allan Spradling’s lab, and learned about Drosophila maintenance and molecular biology. While working during the day, she attended Johns Hopkins University at night and eventually earned her MSc degree, publishing her graduate work in a first-author paper in PNAS. After that, she continued to work as a technician in the Spradling lab, and produced an antibody against the germline protein Vasa that is currently used by researchers around the world.

It’s certainly not the most straightforward route to a career in the lab, and Dianne must have put a lot of effort and energy into studying biology at night after already working in a lab all day. But it does show that there is more than one way to the bench.

How did you end up in biology? And what do you hope to do next?

(4 votes)

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Earlier this month, Shinya Yamanaka, of the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, won the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology for his groundbreaking work on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). Yamanaka was the first to generate iPS cells from somatic cells – first from mouse fibroblasts and later from human fibroblasts – showing that it was possible to create pluripotent cells without relying solely on embryonic stem cells. He received his award on May 3 at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel in Vancouver.

The March of Dimes Prize, worth $250,000, has been awarded since 1996 to developmental biologists whose work contributes to the prevention and treatment of birth defects and other diseases. Five of the past recipients have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.

Here is a video about the award, showing past winners (until 2007)

(image from Wikimedia commons)

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At the Node we welcome reports from scientific meetings, but only if the meeting organizers and speakers allow it. I’m currently writing the Node’s guidelines for meeting reports, and then realized I could fill an entire post with additional information and links. Unlike the guidelines, anything in this post is very general advice and not Node-specific.

First, find out if the meeting organizers have outlined a specific media or reporting policy. It varies a lot between meetings, and what is fine for one type of conference is absolutely not okay for another. For example, you are not allowed to report on any of the presentations at a Gordon Research Conference. They’re very explicit about this policy, and you should respect that. At the the other end of the spectrum is the Society for Neuroscience, who encouraged bloggers to write about their 2009 conference, and even selected a group of official “Neurobloggers”.
Most meetings will have a reporting policy in between these two extremes, and if they put their policy on their website, it usually tells you to ask for permission. CSHL updated their reporting policy in 2009 to include bloggers, and requires you to ask permission from the presenters before you write about them or their research. They also ask you to let them know whenever you intend to blog from or about one of their meetings. Keystone Symposia’s policy is very similar, and also asks you to ask permission from the speaker before blogging about their presentations.

What if there are no guidelines published? To avoid catching speakers and organizers by surprise, e-mail the meeting organizers to let them know you want to write about the meeting, and suggest that you will ask permission from each speaker individually before mentioning any scientific content. If the meeting organizer says that you’re not allowed to blog anything from the meeting, don’t do it. If they give you permission, save that correspondence in case you get into an unexpected conflict later. (This is why e-mail is better than asking in person!) The speakers’ e-mail addresses will usually be in the program booklet. Once you have decided that you liked a talk so much that you want to write about it, drop them a line. They might want to see your blog post before you upload it, or want to know where to find it.

If you haven’t asked for permission, or haven’t received it, you can still write a little bit about the meeting, but only as much as is already publicly available. This means that if a meeting organizer only publishes the name of the conference and the location, you can’t even mention the names of people who were there without their consent. If the entire program and all the poster abstracts are publicly available, you can include the names of speakers and the general topic of their talk or poster.

So why are conference organizers so strict about blogging? Aren’t the talks public knowledge now that the audience heard them? No!
The purpose of scientific conferences is not to tell the whole world about new research, but to update a group of other scientists about current projects. This means that a lot of unpublished data are shown; data that still need to be published in a journal. Most journals will not publish data that have previously been published elsewhere, and that includes results mentioned on a blog. To put it very bluntly: A blog post that contains unpublished data has the potential to ruin someone’s career.

A lot of journals do publish official meeting reports, but these are sent to the speakers before it’s published. When speakers see a draft of the meeting report that includes a little too much detail about their work, they ask the author to remove it. If you write about a talk on your blog, speakers have no such control over it. Organizers and speakers may still contact you after you publish the blog post, and ask for it to be removed. Please do so if they ask.

To summarize: if you want to blog about a meeting, make sure you have permission from the organizers and speakers, or only mention as much as is already publicly available.

(Photo by Eva Amsen. Taken at Science Online London 2009 – a conference that explicitly encouraged participants to blog about the talks.)

(2 votes)

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