Doing great science depends on teamwork, whether this is within the lab or in collaboration with other labs. However, sometimes the resources that support our work can be overlooked. Our ‘Featured resource’ series aims to shine a light on these unsung heroes of the science world. In our latest article, we hear from Tanya Z. Berardini, Ph.D (TAIR Director) and Leonore Reiser, Ph.D (Senior Scientific Curator)] who describe the work of TAIR.
The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) was established in 1999 with US National Science Foundation funding and the goal of creating a database of genetic and molecular biology data for the model higher plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Arabidopsis was the first plant genome to be sequenced (1). Since then, over twenty years of research have continually improved the sequence and functional annotation of a genome that serves as a reference for an ever-increasing number of newly sequenced plant genomes (2). TAIR integrates, interconnects, and consolidates information from peer-reviewed published literature with sequence and stock information (3) so that researchers can spend less time searching for information and more time developing and testing hypotheses guided by work that has already been done.
Who runs the resource?
TAIR was created at the Department of Plant Biology of the Carnegie Institute for Science and the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and supported by the NSF from 1999 to 2013. Since 2014, it has been administered and maintained by the non-profit organization, Phoenix Bioinformatics (4). Phoenix has a small team of dedicated data curation scientists, who meticulously curate and update TAIR data, and software engineers, who maintain and update TAIR’s database and tools. Newly curated information from the literature is added weekly.
Where does funding come from?
Since 2014, TAIR’s operations have been funded by subscriptions from academic and other non-profit institutions, individual researchers, corporations and countries (e.g., China through its National Science and Technology Library). Institutional subscriptions are priced based on past year usage, so that institutions that use the resource more contribute more to its maintenance and growth. TAIR’s subscription support is as global as its user base. Phoenix Bioinformatics has additional funding from the NSF and the Sloan Foundation for other aspects of its work.
Can one access TAIR without a subscription?
Unlimited access to TAIR’s data and tools almost always requires a subscription. However, TAIR provides a limited number of free page views for occasional users each month. This is similar to the monthly allotment of complimentary articles often offered by online newspapers and magazines. After the monthly limit is reached a subscription is encouraged. Upon request, TAIR grants full access for teachers and students at non-subscribing institutions for classes that use TAIR in their curriculum. US Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are granted free access. Finally, we grant country-wide access to those countries that fall into the ‘low-income economies’ categorization of the World Bank.
What tools and resources are available for researchers?
The TAIR locus page is a treasure trove that consolidates in-house data, data pulled from other resources by APIs, and links to external resources with complementary information. New articles, gene symbols and full names, gene summaries, Gene Ontology (GO) and Plant Ontology (PO) annotations, germplasms and phenotypes based on those articles are added by data curation scientists to a subset of loci on a weekly basis.
Researchers can find information for single genes or they can download data (sequences, descriptions, GO annotations) for sets of genes or even the whole genome.
There are two types of quarterly data releases: (A) Public data releases are a year old and are released for public reuse with a CC-BY reuse license. (B) Subscriber data releases reflect the most recent year’s data.
TAIR provides data search and browsing services, data analysis tools, and data visualization tools, such as genome browsers (e.g., JBrowse) and a BLAST service that includes unique datasets.
JBrowse at TAIR, 3 out of 250+ tracks shown
How can the community contribute?
Make data FAIR (5).
Use AGI identifiers for the Arabidopsis genes in papers!
Use stock identifiers from NASC and ABRC for seed and DNA stocks. They allow us to link these stocks unambiguously to locus records at TAIR.
Register gene symbols, use the symbols for genes that already exist and check that symbols you want to use are not already in use.
Beta site (in progress): New look of the TAIR Locus Page
Any hidden gems, features that are new, or that researchers might be less aware of?
The biggest hidden gem is that if you email us, we will respond within 24 hrs during a regularly scheduled work week.
Not only can one view information for one gene at a time, one can also upload a list of genes and retrieve gene descriptions, sequences, and GO annotations (and other types of data) in bulk.
The TAIR YouTube channel has tutorials and webinars of different lengths explaining various features of the resource. Watch a video and learn something new.
Access to PhyloGenes (www.phylogenes.org) is integrated into the TAIR Locus page. You can link to the Panther-based gene family, explore experimental and phylogenetically-inferred functional information for gene family members in Arabidopsis and 29 other plants, and take advantage of experimental annotations made in Arabidopsis and other model organisms.
Plant Homolog Section of TAIR Locus Page
The TAIR Job listings page is very active with about three new listings posted a week. Some labs recruit almost exclusively by posting their grad student and post-doc openings at https://www.arabidopsis.org/news/jobs.jsp. All openings are also shared through our Twitter account (@tair_news).
References:
The Arabidopsis Genome Initiative. Analysis of the genome sequence of the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature. 408, 796–815 (2000). doi.org/10.1038/35048692
Nicholas J Provart, Siobhan M Brady, Geraint Parry, Robert J Schmitz, Christine Queitsch, Dario Bonetta, Jamie Waese, Korbinian Schneeberger, Ann E Loraine. Anno genominis XX: 20 years of Arabidopsis genomics, The Plant Cell. 33(4):832–845 (2021). doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koaa038
Tanya Z. Berardini, Leonore Reiser, Donghui Li, Yarik Mezheritsky, Robert Muller, Emily Strait, Eva Huala. The Arabidopsis information resource: Making and mining the “gold standard” annotated reference plant genome. Genesis. 53(8):474-85 (2015). doi.org/10.1002/dvg.22877
Leonore Reiser, Tanya Z. Berardini, Donghui Li, Robert Muller, Emily M. Strait, Qian Li, Yarik Mezheritsky, Andrey Vetushko, Eva Huala. Sustainable funding for biocuration: The Arabidopsis Information Resource (TAIR) as a case study of a subscription-based funding model, Database. Volume 2016, (2016). doi.org/10.1093/database/baw018
Leonore Reiser, Lisa Harper, Michael Freeling, Bin Han, Sheng Luan. FAIR: A Call to Make Published Data More Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable, Molecular Plant 11(9):1105-1108 (2018). doi.org/10.1016/j.molp.2018.07.005
Contributed by Tanya Z. Berardini, Ph.D (TAIR Director) and Leonore Reiser, Ph.D (Senior Scientific Curator)
Rnf20 shapes the endothelial control of heart morphogenesis and function Linda Kessler, Rui Gao, Nalan Tetik-Elsherbiny, Olga Lityagina, Azhar Zhailauova, Yonggang Ren, Felix A. Trogisch, Julio Cordero, Yanliang Dou, Yinuo Wang, Evgeny Chichelnitskiy, Joscha Alexander Kraske, Patricia Laura Schäfer, Chi-Chung Wu, Guillermo Barreto, Michael Potente, Thomas Wieland, Roxana Ola, Joerg Heineke, Gergana Dobreva
Universal DNA methylation age across mammalian tissues A.T. Lu, Z. Fei, A. Haghani, T.R. Robeck, J.A. Zoller, C.Z. Li, R. Lowe, Q. Yan, J. Zhang, H. Vu, J. Ablaeva, V.A. Acosta-Rodriguez, D.M. Adams, J. Almunia, A. Aloysius, R. Ardehali, A. Arneson, C.S. Baker, G. Banks, K. Belov, N.C. Bennett, P. Black, D.T. Blumstein, E.K. Bors, C.E. Breeze, R.T. Brooke, J.L. Brown, G. Carter, A. Caulton, J.M. Cavin, L. Chakrabarti, I. Chatzistamou, H. Chen, K. Cheng, P. Chiavellini, O.W. Choi, S. Clarke, L.N. Cooper, M.L. Cossette, J. Day, J. DeYoung, S. DiRocco, C. Dold, E.E. Ehmke, C.K. Emmons, S. Emmrich, E. Erbay, C. Erlacher-Reid, C.G. Faulkes, S.H. Ferguson, C.J. Finno, J.E. Flower, J.M. Gaillard, E. Garde, L. Gerber, V.N. Gladyshev, V. Gorbunova, R.G. Goya, M.J. Grant, C.B. Green, E.N. Hales, M.B. Hanson, D.W. Hart, M. Haulena, K. Herrick, A.N. Hogan, C.J. Hogg, T.A. Hore, T. Huang, J.C. Izpisua Belmonte, A.J. Jasinska, G. Jones, E. Jourdain, O. Kashpur, H. Katcher, E. Katsumata, V. Kaza, H. Kiaris, M.S. Kobor, P. Kordowitzki, W.R. Koski, M. Kruetzen, S.B. Kwon, B. Larison, S.G. Lee, M. Lehmann, J.F. Lemaitre, A.J. Levine, C. Li, X. Li, A.R. Lim, D.T.S. Lin, D.M. Lindemann, T.J. Little, N. Macoretta, D. Maddox, C.O. Matkin, J.A. Mattison, M. McClure, J. Mergl, J.J. Meudt, G.A. Montano, K. Mozhui, J. Munshi-South, A. Naderi, M. Nagy, P. Narayan, P.W. Nathanielsz, N.B. Nguyen, C. Niehrs, J.K. O’Brien, P. O’Tierney Ginn, D.T. Odom, A.G. Ophir, S. Osborn, E.A. Ostrander, K.M. Parsons, K.C. Paul, M. Pellegrini, K.J. Peters, A.B. Pedersen, J.L. Petersen, D.W. Pietersen, G.M. Pinho, J. Plassais, J.R. Poganik, N.A. Prado, P. Reddy, B. Rey, B.R. Ritz, J. Robbins, M. Rodriguez, J. Russell, E. Rydkina, L.L. Sailer, A.B. Salmon, A. Sanghavi, K.M. Schachtschneider, D. Schmitt, T. Schmitt, L. Schomacher, L.B. Schook, K.E. Sears, A.W. Seifert, A. Seluanov, A.B.A. Shafer, D. Shanmuganayagam, A.V. Shindyapina, M. Simmons, K. Singh, I. Sinha, J. Slone, R.G. Snell, E. Soltanmaohammadi, M.L. Spangler, M.C. Spriggs, L. Staggs, N. Stedman, K.J. Steinman, D.T. Stewart, V.J. Sugrue, B. Szladovits, J.S. Takahashi, M. Takasugi, E.C. Teeling, M.J. Thompson, B. Van Bonn, S.C. Vernes, D. Villar, H.V. Vinters, M.C. Wallingford, N. Wang, R.K. Wayne, G.S. Wilkinson, C.K. Williams, R.W. Williams, X.W. Yang, M. Yao, B.G. Young, B. Zhang, Z. Zhang, P. Zhao, Y. Zhao, W. Zhou, J. Zimmermann, J. Ernst, K. Raj, S. Horvath
Discovery and characterization of LNCSOX17 as an essential regulator in human endoderm formation Alexandro Landshammer, Adriano Bolondi, Helene Kretzmer, Christian Much, René Buschow, Alina Rose, Hua-Jun Wu, Sebastian Mackowiak, Bjoern Braendl, Pay Giesselmann, Rosaria Tornisiello, Krishna Mohan Parsi, Jack Huey, Thorsten Mielke, David Meierhofer, René Maehr, Denes Hnisz, Franziska Michor, John L. Rinn, Alexander Meissner
The Neuroscience Multi-Omic Archive: A BRAIN Initiative resource for single-cell transcriptomic and epigenomic data from the mammalian brain Seth A. Ament, Ricky S. Adkins, Robert Carter, Elena Chrysostomou, Carlo Colantuoni, Jonathan Crabtree, Heather H. Creasy, Kylee Degatano, Victor Felix, Peter Gandt, Gwenn A. Garden, Michelle Giglio, Brian R. Herb, Farzaneh Khajouei, Elizabeth Kiernan, Carrie McCracken, Kennedy McDaniel, Suvarna Nadendla, Lance Nickel, Dustin Olley, Joshua Orvis, Joseph P. Receveur, Mike Schor, Timothy L. Tickle, Jessica Way, Ronna Hertzano, Anup A. Mahurkar, Owen R White
Transient Polycomb activity represses developmental genes in growing oocytes Ellen G. Jarred, Zhipeng Qu, Tesha Tsai, Ruby Oberin, Sigrid Petautschnig, Heidi Bildsoe, Stephen Pederson, Qing-hua Zhang, Jessica M. Stringer, John Carroll, David K. Gardner, Maarten van den Buuse, Natalie A. Sims, William T. Gibson, David L. Adelson, Patrick S. Western
The imprinted Mir483 is a growth suppressor and metabolic regulator functioning through IGF1 Ionel Sandovici, Denise S. Fernandez-Twinn, Niamh Campbell, Wendy N. Cooper, Yoichi Sekita, Ilona Zvetkova, David Ferland-McCollough, Haydn M. Prosser, Lila M. Oyama, Danilo Cimadomo, Karina Barbosa de Queiroz, Cecilia S.K. Cheuk, Nicola M. Smith, Richard G. Kay, Katharina Hoelle, Noel H. Smith, Stefan H. Geyer, Lukas F. Reissig, Wolfgang J. Weninger, Kenneth Siddle, Anne E. Willis, Martin Bushell, Susan E. Ozanne, Miguel Constância
Cellular senescence modulates progenitor cell expansion during axolotl limb regeneration Qinghao Yu, Hannah E. Walters, Giovanni Pasquini, Sumeet Pal Singh, Daniel León-Periñán, Andreas Petzold, Preethi Kesavan, Cristina Subiran, Ines Garteizgogeascoa, Dunja Knapp, Anne Wagner, Andrea Bernardos, María Alfonso, Gayathri Nadar, Andreas Dahl, Volker Busskamp, Ramón Martínez-Máñez, Maximina H. Yun
Effects of α-crystallin gene knockout on zebrafish lens development Mason Posner, Kelly L. Murray, Brandon Andrew, Stuart Brdicka, Alexis Roberts, Kirstan Franklin, Adil Hussen, Taylor Kaye, Emmaline Kepp, Mathew S. McDonald, Tyler Snodgrass, Keith Zientek, Larry L. David
Machine-learning dissection of Human Accelerated Regions in primate neurodevelopment Sean Whalen, Fumitaka Inoue, Hane Ryu, Tyler Fairr, Eirene Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, Kathleen Keough, Martin Kircher, Beth Martin, Beatriz Alvarado, Orry Elor, Dianne Laboy Cintron, Alex Williams, Md. Abul Hassan Samee, Sean Thomas, Robert Krencik, Erik M. Ullian, Arnold Kriegstein, John L. Rubenstein, Jay Shendure, Alex A. Pollen, Nadav Ahituv, Katherine S. Pollard
A single cell atlas of the cycling murine ovary ME Morris, MC Meinsohn, M Chauvin, HD Saatcioglu, A. Kashiwagi, NA. Sicher, NMP Nguyen, S Yuan, Rhian Stavely, M Hyun, PK Donahoe, B Sabatini, D Pépin
A CRISPR/Cas9-based enhancement of high-throughput single-cell transcriptomics Amitabh C. Pandey, Jon Bezney, Dante DeAscanis, Ethan Kirsch, Farin Ahmed, Austin Crinklaw, Kumari Sonal Choudhary, Tony Mandala, Jeffrey Deason, Jasmin Hamdi, Azeem Siddique, Sridhar Ranganathan, Phillip Ordoukhanian, Keith Brown, Jon Armstrong, Steven Head, Eric J. Topol
hPGCLCs in 2D culture using BME overlay method from Overeem, et al.
A human fetal lung cell atlas uncovers proximal-distal gradients of differentiation and key regulators of epithelial fates Peng He, Kyungtae Lim, Dawei Sun, Jan Patrick Pett, Quitz Jeng, Krzysztof Polanski, Ziqi Dong, Liam Bolt, Laura Richardson, Lira Mamanova, Monika Dabrowska, Anna Wilbrey-Clark, Elo Madissoon, Zewen Kelvin Tuong, Emma Dann, Chenqu Suo, Isaac Goh, Masahiro Yoshida, Marko Z Nikolić, Sam M Janes, Xiaoling He, Roger A Barker, Sarah A Teichmann, John C. Marioni, Kerstin B Meyer, Emma L Rawlins
Bat pluripotent stem cells reveal unique entanglement between host and viruses Marion Déjosez, Arturo Marin, Graham M. Hughes, Ariadna E. Morales, Carlos Godoy-Parejo, Jonathan Gray, Yiren Qin, Arun A. Singh, Hui Xu, Javier Juste, Carlos Ibáñez, Kris M. White, Romel Rosales, Nancy J. Francoeur, Robert P. Sebra, Dominic Alcock, Sébastien J. Puechmaille, Andrzej Pastusiak, Simon D.W. Frost, Michael Hiller, Richard A. Young, Emma C. Teeling, Adolfo García-Sastre, Thomas P. Zwaka
Transplantable human thyroid organoids generated from embryonic stem cells to rescue hypothyroidism Mírian Romitti, Adrien Tourneur, Barbara de Faria da Fonseca, Gilles Doumont, Pierre Gillotay, Xiao-Hui Liao, Sema Elif Eski, Gaetan Van Simaeys, Laura Chomette, Helene Lasolle, Olivier Monestier, Dominika Figini Kasprzyk, Vincent Detours, Sumeet Pal Singh, Serge Goldman, Samuel Refetoff, Sabine Costagliola
A single cell atlas of the cycling murine ovary ME Morris, MC Meinsohn, M Chauvin, HD Saatcioglu, A. Kashiwagi, NA. Sicher, NMP Nguyen, S Yuan, Rhian Stavely, M Hyun, PK Donahoe, B Sabatini, D Pépin
Initial recommendations for performing, benchmarking, and reporting single-cell proteomics experiments Laurent Gatto, Ruedi Aebersold, Juergen Cox, Vadim Demichev, Jason Derks, Edward Emmott, Alexander M. Franks, Alexander R. Ivanov, Ryan T. Kelly, Luke Khoury, Andrew Leduc, Michael J. MacCoss, Peter Nemes, David H. Perlman, Aleksandra A. Petelski, Christopher M. Rose, Erwin M. Schoof, Jennifer Van Eyk, Christophe Vanderaa, John R. Yates III, Nikolai Slavov
You may have seen on twitter that our Senior Editor, Seema Grewal, will shortly be leaving Development (sob, sob) to take up a new role as the Executive Editor of our sister journal, Journal of Cell Science (hurrah!). This means that there’s an opening for a new Reviews Editor on Development, and we’re excited to be recruiting a new colleague to join our team. Full details of the position can be found here, and if you’re potentially interested but want to find out more, you are welcome to get in touch with me for an informal chat. Obviously I’m biased, but this really is a great opportunity to contribute to the journal and hence to the community more broadly.
We also have another job opening at the moment, for a new Community Manager for FocalPlane, our platform for the microscopy community. FocalPlane operates along similar lines to the Node, and the Community Manager has a great opportunity to help shape the future of the site, support the community and build their science communication skills. To find out more, take a look at the full job advert, and again you’re welcome to reach out if you’d like more details.
In 2017, our Node Intern, Sarah Morson, revamped our ‘Resources’ topic area on the Node. With a bigger emphasis on advocacy and outreach, we also cover teaching resources, societies and journals, audio-visual resources and resources for researchers.
More recently, we have added a ‘Featured resource’ series to the Node. In this series, we invite the ‘resources’ to showcase the services that they offer the scientific community. So far, we have heard from the following resources, with more to come in the future!
We would welcome any nominations (including self-nominations). You can contact us at thenode@biologists.com, with nominations or links to include in our Resources topic area.
“And that is one of the sort of worrying things about climate change; as we get more unpredictable weather patterns, can we actually design resilient wheat? So switching from a focus of just increasing wheat yields at any cost to having wheat that’s really robust to fluctuating weather conditions such as drought, but also flooding and unpredictable patterns basically.”
Dr Hannah Rees, Earlham Institute
In the latest episode of the Genetics Unzipped podcast, we’re looking at the future of food. With climate change making crop harvests more unpredictable and fresh water becoming a more scarce resource, what are geneticists doing to make sure we will still have food on our plates? Dr Kat Arney chats with Dr Hannah Rees about giving wheat jet lag to create a more reliable crop, and Dr Sally Le Page talks to Dr Tarang Mehta about breeding genetically improved tilapia for fish farming.
The next Society for Developmental Biology Ethel Browne Harvey Postdoctoral Seminar will be held Friday, October 14, at 3 pm ET (9 pm CEST). This seminar featuring Hae Ryong Kwon from Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and Leslie Slota-Burtt from Duke University is generously sponsored by The Node.
Hae Ryong Kwon did his undergraduate studies in Microbiology at Chungbuk National University in South Korea. He completed a Master’s in Microbiology and Biotechnology at Chugbuk National University and a Master’s in Genome Science and Technology at the University of Tennessee. Kwon went on to earn his doctorate in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental, and Neural Biology at the University of Albany, State University of New York where he studied the function of endothelial cells in early salivary gland development in Melinda Larson’s lab. In 2016, Kwon joined Lorin E. Olson’s lab at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation where he studies the roles of platelet-derived growth factor signaling in human pathogenesis driving genetic diseases such as Kosaki overgrowth syndrome, Penttinen syndrome, and infantile myofibromatosis. Kwon was the recipient of an NIH National Research Service Award (F32) from the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute.
Leslie Slota-Burtt did her undergraduate studies in Chemistry at the University of Florida. She earned her doctorate in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology Program at Duke University where she studied cell type specification and evolution of the developing sea urchin nervous and digestive systems in Dave McClay’s lab. In 2019, Slota-Burtt joined Kenneth Poss’ lab at Duke University where she studies adult brain regeneration, specifically how genes and signaling pathways are activated after brain injury in the zebrafish. Slota-Burtt is the recipient of the NIH National Research Service Award (F32) from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
What’s in a name? From defining ‘epigenetics’, to naming nervous system organoids and assembloids, #SciTwitter has been alive with debate over the last two weeks. We bring you some of our favourite Twitter threads on these topics.
What’s in a name, part one
The lively discussion from #EMBOepigenome on what is real and hearsay in epigenetics spilled over onto Twitter. What does epigenetics mean to you and where do you sit on Zack Chiang’s epigenetics alignment chart? As always, click on the Tweets to read the full thread!
Things are getting intense! @ericmiska is leading a roundtable about what is real and what is heresy in epigenetics. As you can imagine, a lot of nuanced thoughts in this crowd. #EMBOepigenomepic.twitter.com/EqGJPReCyE
To facilitate discussion both within the scientific community and with the general public, researchers came together to produce a framework for naming neural organoids and assembloids: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05219-6
Self-organizing systems have been one of the most exciting recent advances in stem cell research However, many names & classifications are used making it challenging to convey the science We now got together as a field to provide a nomenclature framework Out in @Nature today👇1/9 pic.twitter.com/MpBs858Wmx
Initially Hox genes were called with the species letter (mhox for mouse, Xhox for Xenopus..) until it was realized that there were more than 26 species on earth🙄 Standardisation worked pretty well in this case https://t.co/oh8SaeFWfo
During the panel discussion at our recent Development Meeting ‘From Stem Cells to Human Development’, we also discussed the importance of public perception, as well as consistency, in naming the multitude of in vitro models of human development. Go to 1hr45mins for the start of the panel discussion.
Enthusiastic about science communication and looking for a chance to broaden your writing experience alongside your research activities? The Node, our community site for developmental and stem cell biologists, is looking to appoint three correspondents who will play a key role in developing and writing content over the coming year.
As part of a small cohort, you will have the chance to engage with fellow researchers and scicomm enthusiasts as you work together to plan and generate fresh content. You will also gain insight into the publishing industry through meetings with our in-house Editors, Community Managers and Science Communications Officer, and receive regular feedback on your writing.
We will help raise your profile as a researcher and science communicator, and are also happy to support you by contributing towards conference attendance costs relating to the role, providing reference letters, or in other ways.
You will be expected to contribute around six posts over the course of the year – this could involve creating your own blog series around a theme of your choice, reporting on the latest exciting developments in developmental and stem cell biology, interviewing inspiring scientists, or writing about conferences and other events. We are also open to any other ideas you might have as we would like to shape a programme that both appeals to your interests and benefits the research community.
Please note, we are also recruiting correspondents for FocalPlane, so when applying you will have the option of choosing to apply for the Node, FocalPlane or both.
We encourage applications from all individuals regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, ethnicity, age, neurodiversity or disability status. We also welcome applicants from a range of geographic locations.
Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about the programme at thenode@biologists.com
In June 2022 The Company of Biologists organised an unusual Workshop for creative science writing. For the first time, scientists interested in communication were gathered together to experiment fiction and non-fiction science writing. The outcome far exceeded the expectations of the participants. The recipe for success was a combination of professional fiction and non-fiction writers, a group of motivated students, and the amazing venue of Wiston House (built circa. 1576) in the English countryside.
The Workshop was organised and directed by Professors Buzz Baum, Enrico Coen, Jennifer Rohn, and Mark Miodownik, assisted by the great logistic support of The Company of Biologists and in particular Frank O’Donnell and Jane Elsom. Students from different countries and career backgrounds contributed to the unique multicultural and interdisciplinary vibes. Students were selected and some flew all the way from India, USA, Sweden – just to mention a few. Native as well as non-native speakers had the chance to ameliorate their writing skills or practice their first fiction writing in a supportive and enriching environment. I had the honour of being one of the students in the Workshop and I benefited from this experience beyond words. In actual words, as it is required for writers, I appreciated the attentive supervision from the acclaimed writers, junior writers, and science journalists present at the Workshop. They all had different writing styles and expertise, thus mentoring the students in their own personal and unique way.
During those four days, students were challenged to leave behind the rigor of the scientific method and explore creativity. We discussed literary fiction, writing style, all the way to how to get your piece published and deal with editors. The most valuable resource was receiving feedback from authors with different writing background and styles. Mentees had the chance to share writing pieces with peers and mentors, thus creating a collaborative and supportive environment.
The experiment of the Workshop was as follows: group together scientists with an interest in writing and observe the result. Students came from different disciplines – marine biology, entomology, biotech, genetics – but they all shared a passion for writing. Some of us were interested in fiction writing, others in science journalism. Some had just started drafting, others were about to submit their first manuscript. Everyone was given equal time to share their work and engage in exciting debates about literature. The result was a kaleidoscope of creativity, novelty, drama, and certainly a new perspective on science.
The Workshop was carefully planned to give students time to write, revise pieces and discuss them with supervisors. At every feedback session there was at least one mentor every two students, which meant that everyone received detailed and exhaustive comments.
Another highlight of the Workshop was the dining hall and the meals. During dining time, we had the most interesting and enlightening conversations. Writers have plenty of exciting stories to share. Students have plenty of energy and motivation to give. The bidirectional sharing of resources was simply powerful and enriching.
The glorious historic venue with its vast green certainly played a major role in finding inspiration and focus to write. Finding time and calm is not trivial on the daily life of a scientist. The Workshop created the right atmosphere to truly dive into books, words, and phrases. I would like to personally thank The Company of Biologists and all Wiston house staff for making all of this possible.
Ansley Conchola (MSTP MD/PhD candidate in Jason Spence‘s lab at the University of Michigan Medical School) ‘Stable iPSC-derived NKX2-1+ lung bud tip progenitor organoids give rise to airway and alveolar cell types’
Sham Tlili (CNRS research investigator at the Marseille Developmental Biology Institute (IBDM) in Aix-Marseille University) ‘A microfluidic platform to investigate the role of mechanical constraints on tissue reorganization’
Alexandra Wehmeyer (M.D. thesis student) and Sebastian Arnold (Acting Director, Institute of Pharmacology, University of Freiburg) ‘Chimeric 3D-gastruloids – a versatile tool for studies of mammalian peri-gastrulation development’
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...
