The Centre for Trophoblast Research will again run its popular course in placental biology, online, from Monday 11th to Friday 15th July 2022.
This online course is aimed at students, post-docs, established researchers, medical & veterinary healthcare professionals and industry colleagues interested in cutting-edge placental biology and research.
Most content will be pre-recorded lectures and practical sessions given by investigators at the forefront of the placental biology field. There will be daily live Q&A sessions with the speakers, and opportunities to give talks and network.
Lectures and practical topics include:
Human & mouse placental development Organoids, explant and trophoblast cultures Materno-fetal interactions Immunology Placental transport Angiogenesis Clinical study design Placental metabolism Stem cell embryo models Genome editing Grant/fellowship writing History of human embryos
We hope you will join us!
Limited places. Register here : https://www.trophoblast.cam.ac.uk/placentalbiologycourse/registration
The Fossils, Phylogenies, Genomes, Embryos & the Evolution of the Deuterostomes symposium took place at the Natural History Museum in London to honour the work and contributions of the late palaeontologist R.P.S. ‘Dick’ Jefferies. In a field that is often looking to the future, it can be easy to take for granted the work that has come before or to overlook the early iterations of hypotheses we investigate today. This brilliant symposium, featuring speakers working across the scope of deuterostome evolution, was a fitting celebration of the pioneering work carried out by Dick Jefferies.
Joining the British Museum in the 1960s, Dick’s research focused on deuterostome fossils. Although many of his predictions have subsequently been disproved, some of his then-radical ideas have in fact been confirmed by more modern techniques. For example, his perhaps unexpected hypothesis of a clade comprising the tunicates and vertebrates (the Olfactores), has been subsequently supported by molecular data. Modern imaging approaches have also been key to confirming the validity of some of his ideas. A brilliant talk by Imran Rahman showed beautiful high-resolution X-ray scans supporting Jefferies’ idea of gill slits in early echinoderm fossils called the Stylophora. A particularly entertaining talk by Bertrand Lefebvre to round out the day detailed the painstakingly slow fossil sectioning-and-tracing technique employed by Jefferies’ to draw the same hypotheses now reached with very rapid microscopy approaches.
A particular highlight of the symposium was the breadth of research represented in the talks. Trends in developmental biology might sometimes lean towards developmental genetics and -omics, but the ‘evo’ side of evo-devo holds valuable contributions for the field. An excellent talk by Elizabeth Clark detailed the modelling of locomotion from fossil traces, and several talks (Paschalia Kapli, Graham Budd, Rachel Warnock) discussed persistent problems in phylogenetics. It was great to see the representation of such diverse research, and clear that there are still many open questions in the field – some of them pondered by Jefferies himself – remaining to be answered.
The Fossils, Phylogenies, Embryos & the Evolution of the Deuterostomes meeting was held on 12 May. It was supported by The Company of Biologists and The Palaeontological Association and organised by Max Telford, Jeffrey Thompson, Tim Ewin, Tim Littlewood, Greg Edgecombe, and Paul Barrett.
I read your article just now, it is so perceptive of where things have gone in ‘Embryology’. The problem with us oldies is that we compare approaches, but the new generations can ignore us saying we have rose-tinted glasses about the past. And that may be true, but it is not an argument and your article provides real arguments. One core theme running through the article is that the balance between data collection and experiments that are designed to understand has gone completely wrong over the last few decades.
It is so comforting to find someone else who sees this as clearly as you do. When we began our work, Wigglesworth was my mentor. His style was careful observation, then a question (how? why?), then a series of simple and direct experiments to answer it. I have always tried to follow this approach, and with genetics, specifically genetic mosaics, we have had powerful (although not so simple) methods to do this.
I don’t think our papers have changed fundamentally in this long time, we still try to get at mechanisms by carefully designed experiments and I submit that they meet high standards of technique and rigour. But we can’t publish them in major journals as we used to, indeed we don’t even try. I submit this is because they don’t meet the new criteria. You explain what these criteria are in your article. To put it cynically, I believe that success goes to those who put in so much fashionable data that no reviewer can fault it, they are almost ‘drowned’ into submission. When we showed that a cell could have two opposite polarities, in vivo and in situ, depending on inputs from its different neighbours, I naively thought it would be of great interest as it challenges many of the decades-old perceptions of planar cell polarity. It was published in eLife and the evidence is so clear. But it created not even a ripple in the field. That, more than anything, showed me that developmental biology has moved into a new landscape where slag heaps of fashionable data interfere with sight lines (and thought). Just as you put so nicely in your article, thank you for writing it.
Postdoc position immediately available in Guillermo Oliver’s lab at Northwestern University in Chicago to join our team to further characterise the novel functional roles of the lymphatic vasculature in organ development and regeneration in health and disease using available mouse models. Candidates should have recently obtained a PhD or MD degree and have experience working with mice. Interested individuals should email their CV and brief description of research interests to:
Guillermo Oliver, Ph,D,
Director Center for Vascular and Developmental Biology,
In the past week, #devbio twitter has been discussing an opinion article from Claudio Stern, published in Developmental Biology. In the article, Claudio discusses progress in developmental biology from a historical perspective before focussing on the present-day and future challenges for the field. In response the article, starting with a twitter thread from Alex Schier, many in the community disagreed with Claudio’s bleak outlook, some even going so far as to say that it is a golden age for developmental biology. We pick out a few of our favourite tweets (click on the link for the full thread). Let us know what you think about the current outlook for #devbio.
A thought: The problem isn't that mind-blowing dev biol isn’t being done; it's that Cell/Science/Nature won't publish it without some ridicul-omics. Why? The field's weak storytelling in recent years? Our failure to nurture and promote a new generation of stars? Both? Or?
amazing discussion – both Claudio's and Alex's points. I find DevBio exciting and VERY painful to leave behind. But why are there so few applications to the ERC? It's now one of the smallest fields in LifeScience – not in terms of awards but in applications. https://t.co/ECLqFqmeZ0
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
Extrinsic forces have an underestimated impact on shaping tissues and organs. Extracellular matrixes surround tissues and provide the cells with mechanical stimuli to drive morphogenetic processes. A specialized extracellular matrix (ECM) that is crucial for the development of epithelial tissues and organs is the basement membrane. The composition of this matrix varies from tissue to tissue and can consist of hundreds of distinct proteins. However, four main components are present in nearly every basement membrane across metazoan life: Laminins, a family of heterotrimeric (α,β,γ) glycoproteins, that self-assemble into networks and interact with cell surface receptors like integrins or dystroglycans. Collagen IV is a triple-stranded helical structure forming networks by covalent interactions. Nidogen is a sulfated glycoprotein that is supposed to connect Laminin and Collagen IV and Perlecan, a heparan sulfate proteoglycan that is involved in cell-signaling by binding of multiple growth factors.
To what extent the presence of these main components is interdependent during the maintenance of basement membranes and to what extent individual components contribute to the mechanical properties of basement membranes is not well understood.
Ovariole with Drosophila egg chambers of distinct stages (2-8).
In this Issue of Development (Development (2022) 149 (10)) we address these questions and show that Laminin and Collagen IV networks partially persist independently from each other and measured the mechanical properties of the basement membrane after knock-down of single main components.
Uwe Töpfer, Karla Yanín Guerra Santillán, Elisabeth Fischer-Friedrich, Christian Dahmann; Distinct contributions of ECM proteins to basement membrane mechanical properties in Drosophila. Development 15 May 2022; 149 (10): dev200456. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.200456
“While it sounds silly to send squid into space, these simple models are easy to manipulate, small and don’t weigh a lot so we can get you a lot of information in a short period of time.”
Professor Jamie Foster
In the latest episode of the Genetics Unzipped podcast, Dr Sally Le Page takes a deep dive into the world of squid. She quizzes squid biologist and science communicator, Dr Sarah McAnulty on how they evolved and why they’re so hard to genetically modify, and asks microbiologist Professor Jamie Foster why on earth scientists are sending glow-in-the-dark squid into space.
These ‘cephalonauts’ will provide scientists with data to further understand how astronauts’ health is impacted by long-term space flight and how gravity affects the way animals and bacteria talk to each other in symbiotic relationships.
The 4th biennial Sainsbury Laboratory Symposium (#SLS22) will take place at the Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge, UK over three days (21-23 September 2022) and will be delivered in a hybrid format. Delegates may choose to attend in-person or online.
The Symposium will foster a dialogue between researchers working on regulatory dynamics from different fields across the plant and animal kingdoms and consist of talks, poster sessions and daytime and evening social and networking events.
Our goal is to create a welcoming, safe, collaborative, inclusive and respectful symposium environment by promoting diversity of attendance and inclusivity of participation of underrepresented scientists.
Symposium overview
The creation of novel organs, the formation of diverse shapes and patterns within tissues or the ability of cells to deploy different responses to environmental cues all rely on the assembly, rewiring and co-option of gene regulatory networks. We now know that complex behaviours can emerge from relatively simple networks. Reciprocally, sophisticated regulatory networks can often generate stable and predictable outputs despite being intrinsically noisy. Technological advances and new model systems are enabling us to address previously unexplorable questions, continuously modifying our understanding of the regulatory logic that underpins life. With SLS2022 we aim to bring together theoretical and experimental researchers from diverse disciplines using a broad range of species and approaches to investigate the regulatory dynamics contributing to the emergence of biodiversity.
We particularly welcome abstract submissions from early career researchers, women, people from ethnic groups underrepresented in science and/or resource-limited countries as they are currently under-represented in scientific research meetings. We will be promoting our Symposium to a diversity of research institutions and countries. If you know of any people, research groups or institutions you think would be interested in presenting a short talk and/or poster, please share this website with them or contact us at sls@slcu.cam.ac.uk.
You must submit a 250-word maximum abstract if you wish to be considered for presenting a short talk, flash talk or poster.
Short Talk: 15-minute live talk
Flash Talk & Poster: Pre-recorded 5-minute talk and live poster presentation
Poster Only: Live poster presentation
You will be given options to present in-person or online.
Key Dates
Abstract submissions close: 12 June 2022
Registrations to attend only (no abstract) close: 12 July 2022
Cambridge Reproduction, the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences and the Centre for Trophoblast Research are holding a workshop on 18–19 July 2022, Realising the translational potential of reproductive organoids, and focused on the question:
‘How can we realise the potential of reproductive organoids – three-dimensional stem-cell models of organs and embryos – in a therapeutic context?’
To REGISTER, please go to: https://bit.ly/repro-organoids-register.
In-person, at Homerton College, Cambridge, and online. As in-person spaces are limited, we also welcome delegates to join us for the full academic programme virtually.
The workshop will bring together international leading researchers in the field, policymakers, ethical and legal experts, and industry partners. This would enable us to identify the main opportunities, challenges and obstacles, both for researchers and for industry, and to plan next steps. We hope the workshop will catalyse new collaborations and will result in a detailed report that captures the main regulatory and practical challenges and outlines next steps.
For more information, and the 2 day workshop programme, please go to the event webpage: https://bit.ly/repro-organoids
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Please spread the word and circulate details of this event to your colleagues and related networks.
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!)
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