In our latest SciArt profile, we focus on crochet with Tahani Baakdhah, a vision researcher from Toronto, Canada, currently working as postdoc fellow at the Krembil research Institute. Tahani creates crochet models inspired by her science work and her desire to communicate science and medicine to the general public.
Where are you originally from and what do you work on now?
I am a vision researcher from Toronto, Canada. I am currently working as postdoc fellow at the Krembil research Institute
Crocheted scientist doll
Were you always going to be a scientist?
During my medical training, I was curious about the mechanisms underlying clinical diseases and how groundbreaking discoveries are revealing more and more secrets every day due to recent advancements in science. So, I wanted to pursue a career where I can translate basic research to patients’ bedsides and clinics.
Crocheted model of coronavirus
And what about art – have you always enjoyed it?
Yes, art has been always my hobby. In school, I was a member of the art club. I enjoyed exploring different mediums like painting, drawing, fabric work and many more!
Crocheted neuron modelCrocheted neuron plushy
What or who are your most important artistic influences?
I was inspired by the work of Dr Anne Cooke from the University of Bristol in the UK, who started the knit-a-neuron project. I started with simple neuron patterns and then transitioned to more complicated patterns. My collection now includes many neuron types in the nervous system and the retina.
Crocheted Oligodendrocyte plushy
How do you make your art?
I get inspiration from projects I’m working on at the lab, seminar topics, recently published papers or through my customer orders.
Crocheted white blood cell plushy
Does your art influence your science at all, or are they separate worlds?
My science influences my art! When I get excited about a topic, the first thing I think about is crocheting it.
Crocheted retinal neurons
What are you thinking of working on next?
I am working on several books: one with the brain and neuron patterns, another about the body organs and a third with the patterns for my science amigurumi collection.
Thanks to Tahani and all the other SciArtists we have featured so far. You can find the full list here. We’re always on the lookout for new people to feature in this series – whatever kind of art you do, from sculpture to embroidery to music to drawing, if you want to share it with the community just email thenode@biologists.com (nominations are also welcome!)
On Wednesday 4 May, Development hosted three talks to celebrate the completion of our Special Issue focussing on the role of the immune system in development and regeneration.
Below you’ll find each of the talks and Q&As hosted by one of the Guest Editors, Paul Martin (Bristol University).
Ana Zenclussen (Professor for Environmental Pediatric Immunology at the Leipzig University and Head of the Department ofHelmholtz Centre for Environmental Research) ‘Relevance of maternal B cell signaling for fetal development and well-being’
Elena Melendez(Postdoctoral researcher in Manuel Serrano‘s lab at the IRB, Barcelona) ‘Natural killer cells act as an extrinsic barrier for in vivo reprogramming’
Franziska Knopf (Junior Professor at the Centre for Regenerative Therapies, Dresden) ‘Laser mediated osteoblast ablation triggers a pro-osteogenic inflammatory response regulated by reactive oxygen species and glucocorticoid signaling in zebrafish’
ELMI and our sister site, FocalPlane have launched a new image competition. Enter your most beautiful microscopy images for your chance to win €250 and have your image featured on the front cover of the Journal of Cell Science.
For more details and to enter, head over to FocalPlane.
Read on for our news roundup of the past two weeks, with an emphasis on what has caught our eyes on twitter. This week, we focus on meetings.
A new style of scientific meeting?
#ScienceFlashMob
OK! Let's do it! If you're spontaneous come join us next month, June 20-21 in Tel Aviv (exact beach will be specified later). We'll talk science and hopefully make new collaborations and friends for life. Use this thread & the #ScienceFlashMob hashtag to tell us if you're coming! https://t.co/DxjkQWRprWpic.twitter.com/eRmloUbe1O
Please note that some meetings may be full before their application deadline.
The Company of Biologists Workshops 2024
The Company of Biologists is calling for proposals for Workshops. In 2024, one Workshop is reserved for an application from the Global South, you can check out the details here.
If you would like to write for the Node, check out our recent list of writing ideas. If you would like to contribute to our ‘Developing news’ blog, please get in touch at thenode@biologists.com
The Munro (Chicago, USA), Lenne and Ruprecht (Marseille, France) groups seek 2-3 postdoctoral fellows to join a newly funded (NSF/ANR) international collaboration. The overall goal of this effort is to understandhow cell-cell contacts in early C. elegans embryos are shaped by the dynamic interplay of adhesion, biochemical signaling, and actomyosin contractility, using a combination of genetics, biophysics, advanced (single molecule and super-resolution) microscopy and mathematical modeling. Candidates will receive cross-training in two or more of these areas. Successful candidates will be based either in Chicago or Marseille, but will have the opportunity to travel between the two sites and will participate in regular joint group meetings of the entire group.
Minimum Qualifications: A PhD is required by start of appointment, in biology, bioengineering, biophysics, mathematical biology or a closely related field. Prior experience in, and/or commitment to, working in a highly interdisciplinary setting is essential.
Salary: Commensurate with qualifications and experience, plus benefits.
Appointment Type: Twelve-month full-time non-tenure track appointment, with potential to be extended annually for a maximum term of 4 years, subject to satisfactory performance and funding; the positions are currently funded for two years.
To Apply: Interested applicants should submit a letter of interest, a statement of prior research experience and professional interests, a CV, and contact information for three professional references to either: emunro@uchicago.edu or pierre-francois.lenne@univ-amu.fr
It allows replicating the figures presented in our article using your favorite gene(s), without the need to implement bioinformatic analyses. If you are interested in pallium development and want to visualise the expression of specific genes in progenitors and neurons, explore their spatial and temporal variations or compare ventral and dorsal differentiation trajectories, this App is for you. We hope the community of developmental neurobiologists will find it useful and convenient.
Integrative analysis of the 3D genome and epigenome in mouse embryonic tissues Miao Yu, Nathan R. Zemke, Ziyin Chen, Ivan Juric, Rong Hu, Ramya Raviram, Armen Abnousi, Rongxin Fang, Yanxiao Zhang, David U. Gorkin, Yang Li, Yuan Zhao, Lindsay Lee, Anthony D. Schmitt, Yunjiang Qiu, Diane E. Dickel, Axel Visel, Len A. Pennacchio, Ming Hu, Bing Ren
HOPX governs a molecular and physiological switch between cardiomyocyte progenitor and maturation gene programs Clayton E. Friedman, Seth W. Cheetham, Richard J. Mills, Masahito Ogawa, Meredith A. Redd, Han Sheng Chiu, Sophie Shen, Yuliangzi Sun, Dalia Mizikovsky, Romaric Bouveret, Xiaoli Chen, Holly Voges, Scott Paterson, Jessica E. De Angelis, Stacey B. Andersen, Sohye Yoon, Geoffrey J. Faulkner, Kelly A. Smith, Richard P. Harvey, Benjamin M. Hogan, Quan Nguyen, Kazu Kikuchi, James E. Hudson, Nathan J. Palpant
Comprehensive multiomic profiling of somatic mutations in malformations of cortical development Changuk Chung, Xiaoxu Yang, Taejeong Bae, Keng Ioi Vong, Swapnil Mittal, Catharina Donkels, H. Westley Phillips, Ashley P. L. Marsh, Martin W. Breuss, Laurel L. Ball, Camila Araújo Bernardino Garcia, Renee D. George, Jing Gu, Mingchu Xu, Chelsea Barrows, Kiely N. James, Valentina Stanley, Anna Nidhiry, Sami Khoury, Gabrielle Howe, Emily Riley, Xin Xu, Brett Copeland, Yifan Wang, Se Hoon Kim, Hoon-Chul Kang, Andreas Schulze-Bonhage, Carola A. Haas, Horst Urbach, Marco Prinz, Corrine Gardner, Christina A. Gurnett, Shifteh Sattar, Mark Nespeca, David D. Gonda, Katsumi Imai, Yukitoshi Takahashi, Robert Chen, Jin-Wu Tsai, Valerio Conti, Renzo Guerrini, Orrin Devinsky, Wilson A. Silva Jr, Helio R. Machado, Gary W. Mathern, Alexej Abyzov, Sara Baldassari, Stéphanie Baulac, Focal Cortical Dysplasia Neurogenetics Consortium, Brain Somatic Mosaicism Network, Joseph G. Gleeson
Lessons on fruiting body morphogenesis from genomes and transcriptomes of Agaricomycetes László G. Nagy, Peter Jan Vonk, Markus Künzler, Csenge Földi, Máté Virágh, Robin A. Ohm, Florian Hennicke, Balázs Bálint, Árpád Csernetics, Botond Hegedüs, Zhihao Hou, Xiao-Bin Liu, Shen Nan, Manish Pareek, Neha Sahu, Benedek Szathmári, Torda Varga, Hongli Wu, Xiao Yang, Zsolt Merényi
p73 controls cell junction dynamics during sprouting angiogenesis and acts via Angiomotin Laura Maeso-Alonso, Hugo Alonso-Olivares, Nicole Martínez-García, Javier Villoch-Fernández, Laura Puente-Santamaría, Natalia Colas-Algora, Alfonso Fernández-Corona, María Elena Lorenzo-Marcos, Benilde Jiménez, Lars Holmgren, Margareta Wilhelm, Jaime Millan, Luis del Peso, Lena Claesson-Welsh, Margarita M. Marques, Maria C. Marin
UMAP visualisation of human embryonic limb cells from Zhang, et al.
A human embryonic limb cell atlas resolved in space and time Bao Zhang, Peng He, John E Lawrence, Shuaiyu Wang, Elizabeth Tuck, Brian Williams, Kenny Roberts, Vitalii Kleshchevnikov, Lira Mamanova, Liam Bolt, Krzysztof Polanski, Rasa Elmentaite, Eirini S Fasouli, Martin Prete, Xiaoling He, Nadav Yayon, Yixi Fu, Hao Yang, Chen Liang, Hui Zhang, David R. FitzPatrick, Helen Firth, Andrew Dean, Roger A Barker, Mekayla A Storer, Barbara J Wold, Hongbo Zhang, Sarah A Teichmann
Unlocking the microblogging potential for science and medicine Aditya Sarkar, Augustin Giros, Louis Mockly, Jaden Moore, Andrew Moore, Anish Nagareddy, Yesha M. Patel, Karishma Chhugani, Varuni Sarwal, Nicholas Darci-Maher, Yutong Chang, Lana X. Garmire, Riyue Bao, Rayan Chikhi, Serghei Mangul
An open-source tool to assess the carbon footprint of research Jérôme Mariette, Odile Blanchard, Olivier Berné, Olivier Aumont, Julian Carrey, Anne Laure Ligozat, Emmanuel Lellouch, Philippe-e Roche, Gäel Guennebaud, Joel Thanwerdas, Philippe Bardou, Gérald Salin, Elise Maigne, Sophie Servan, Tamara Ben-Ari
In their recent Development paper, published in our Immune Special Issue, Manisha Goyal, Tina Mukherjee, and colleagues examine the pathways controlling ROS homeostasis during hematopoietic growth control. They identify an important role for odor-sensing and the GABA pathway in myeloid ROS regulation, which has downstream effects on hematopoietic growth. Now, Manisha gives us some insights into the story behind the paper.
Dr. Mukherjee’s past work shows the importance of olfaction and GABA signaling in blood-progenitor maintenance (Shim et al., 2013). This work always intrigued me and also motivated me to join the lab. I was fortunate to work on another interesting and fascinating work where we show that olfaction-derived GABA catabolism in blood-progenitor cells regulates their immune response to parasitic wasp infections (Madhwal et al., 2020). Knowing the importance of GABA signaling in blood-progenitor homeostasis and the role of GABA catabolism in immune response, we asked about the involvement of this pathway in homeostatic conditions as well.
How did you get started on this project?
The project started with the observation that perturbation of the GABA catabolic pathway in blood-progenitor cells leads to lymph gland growth retardation. Conversely, we found that perturbation of TCA cycle enzymes in blood-progenitor cells doesn’t affect lymph gland growth in homeostasis. This made us curious to begin exploring the role of GABA catabolism and the TCA cycle in blood-progenitor homeostasis.
What was the key experiment?
There has always been an excitement to do the experiments and analyze the results. The findings that GABA catabolism regulates TCA cycle activity and this regulation is specifically acting on phosphorylation of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase and not on the total enzyme levels were really fascinating to me. This finding was one of the key experiments connecting GABA catabolism, reactive oxygen species (ROS), and TCA cycle regulation. Moreover, working with fruit flies has always been fun and the tiny flies have made exploring the mechanism of complex pathways simple.
When doing the research, did you have any particular result or eureka moment that has stuck with you?
We had some interesting discussions about our results showing that treatment with an antioxidant (N-acetyl cysteine) was sufficient to rescue the lymph gland growth defect and high ROS levels in larvae with a perturbation in the GABA catabolic pathway in blood-progenitor cells (domeMeso>GatRNAi and domeMeso>SsadhRNAi). This experiment was a turning point for the story where we were able to find an independent role/effect of ROS regulation on lymph gland growth and could take the story further.
And what about the flipside: any moments of frustration or despair?
COVID-19 limited the time we could spend in the lab and there were also other constraints on us, labs, and support workers, which heightened the pressure to work. But the excitement to do the experiments and finding the answers helped us to overcome our frustrations.
Where will this story take the lab?
Currently, we are exploring this research further to unravel another aspect of ROS regulation in blood-progenitor cells. This work bridges GABA catabolism and TCA cycle in blood-progenitor cells and given that ROS homeostasis and TCA cycle are regulated by odor-sensing, we are curious to investigate the mechanism and key metabolic changes in homeostasis, as well as in immune response conditions. Hopefully, we will see the outcomes of the work soon.
What is next for you after this paper?
I continue to be a part of this work and I am exploring other mechanisms of ROS regulation by GABA catabolism.
References:
Shim, J., Mukherjee, T., Mondal, B. C., Liu, T., Young, G. C., Wijewarnasuriya, D. P., & Banerjee, U. (2013). Olfactory control of blood progenitor maintenance. Cell, 155(5), 1141–1153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.10.032
Madhwal, S., Shin, M., Kapoor, A., Goyal, M., Joshi, M. K., Ur Rehman, P. M., Gor, K., Shim, J., & Mukherjee, T. (2020). Metabolic control of cellular immune-competency by odors in Drosophila. eLife, 9, e60376. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.60376
“They ruled out nature. They ruled out nurture. There must be something else, and that something else is what I like to call ‘the wobble'”
Dr Kat Arney
In the latest episode of the Genetics Unzipped podcast, presenter Dr Kat Arney explores the importance of randomness in genetics. How can we explain differences between individuals with identical nature and nurture? We look at how Professor Ben Lehner’s worm-breaking research has changed our understanding of epigenetics.
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