In 2023 I was awarded a NC3Rs 20th Anniversary Public Engagement Award to develop and print a “Biological Research Trump Cards” game. I have now designed and printed 100 packs of the game, and my aim is to share them with the scientific community and educators. I hope they will prove a fun and engaging public engagement tool in a variety of different settings.
A researcher in an academic setting who would like to use the cards in your outreach programme
A teacher at primary or secondary school and would be interested in having some packs / hosting a workshop (see below for an example)
Interested in using them but unsure if they are suitable for your audience
So what are “Trump Cards”?
There are few people who have gone through life without encountering Top Trumps in some form. First published in 1978, there are now hundreds of different varieties, from football teams to dinosaurs. The gameplay is simple, with users comparing numerical data to try and trump and win an opponent’s card. It is this simplicity, along with the easily adaptable format, that makes it ideal as a customisable public engagement tool.
Why this format?
I have always wanted to create a card game on a scientific theme that is both fun and educational, and Trump cards are an obvious choice – no complicated rules, compact, and the numerical categories offer the opportunity to convey a lot of information on a single card. The idea for the specific theme of these cards came to me after attending an NC3Rs early career researcher event, where I learnt about all the different research models and systems scientists were using for their research.
How was the game developed?
After extensive research into different research models, I came up with a full set of Top Trumps, including systems ranging from mathematical models to sea urchins. I decided to focus the game on the3Rs message, specifically the replacement of animals in research. Each card has 5 categories, including “replacement potential”, which is based on whether the system is an animal, partial replacement, or full replacement. Together with the NC3Rs team, I fine tuned the cards, making sure it conveyed the 3Rs message in a clear and accessible way. The other categories are “genome size”, “speed”, “size”, and “popularity”, with “speed” referring to how quickly experiments can be carried out, and “popularity” based on the number of articles published in 2019. I designed the cards myself using Adobe Illustrator, and spent many evenings deciding the perfect colour scheme, fonts, and drawing cartoons of fruit flies playing cards.
What is in the pack?
Each pack contains a set of Trump cards, along with explanatory cards for each of the categories, what the NC3Rs is and their mission, and a “how to play” card.
Who are the intended audience?
Top trumps are a well-loved game by children and adults alike, and no prior knowledge of scientific research is necessary to engage with the activity. Most adults and secondary school pupils will have some understanding of how we use animals in research and may have opinions about this, but I anticipate that they will not have been introduced to the myriad other model systems that scientists use. The aim is to promote discussion around the use of animals and alternatives. Younger children will enjoy the pictures and facts about unusual animals, and hopefully it will pique their interest in scientific research.
How do you use the cards?
I have 100 packs for distribution to schools and other researchers for use in their public engagement activities and would be delighted to share them with you. Their use is not limited to playing the full game from start to finish- here are some other examples of ways they can be used:
Short format – one card is chosen at random by each player and one turn is played. This would be most appropriate for stands at science fairs, for example, where people are passing through quickly.
As illustrations – if you are focusing on one or a few different model systems, the cards can be laid out, or images of them displayed on screen, as a quick way to convey a lot of information about that system. In addition to the numerical categories, there is a description on the bottom of the card explaining what the organism or system is used for.
Workshops in schools – in addition to simply playing the game, they are a useful tool to get students thinking about why scientists might use different model systems. For example, I have designed a workshop where students are given three scenarios and they have to choose what they think the best three models are for each research aim. This gets them thinking and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of different models, with support from scientists leading the workshop.
Trump Cards in action at an Motor Neuron Disease Association Legacy event at the Sheffield Institute of Translational Neuroscience. Here we used the cards as illustrations for the different models we use to research MND, as part of a stand showcasing fruit flies and mouse models.
Example workshop
I have designed a workshop aimed at secondary school and sixth form students, which is available for you to download. It can easily be adapted to suit different abilities. The workshop begins with a short introduction to modelling and why we do it, followed by examples. It also touches on what to consider when choosing a model. The main activity involves the students choosing three models for each research aim. During this activity, I would allocate one volunteer per group if possible to sit with the students whilst they discuss. This is helpful because they may have technical questions about different systems that would influence their choices. Additionally, you can probe their reasoning and get them to think about less obvious choices. For example, they might not know that fruit flies can be used for exercise experiments, or consider that mathematical modelling could be used for looking at the relationship between diet and motor neuron disease.
Xiao-Feng Zhao, Rafi Kohen, Eljo Y. Van Battum, Ying Zeng, Xiaolu Zhang, Craig N. Johnson, Karen Wang, Brian C. Lim, Juan A. Oses-Prieto, Joshua M. Rasband, Alma L. Burlingame, R. Jeroen Pasterkamp, Matthew N. Rasband, Roman J. Giger
Marie Zilliox, Gaëlle Letort, David Sanchez, Christian Rouviere, Pascale Dufourcq, Frédérique Gaits-Iacovoni, Anne Pizzoccaro, Violaine Roussier-Michon, Patrick Blader, Julie Batut
Renata Coutinho-dos-Santos, Daniele G. Santos, Lupis Ribeiro, Jonathan J. Mucherino-Muñoz, Marcelle Uhl, Carlos Logullo, A Mendonça-Amarante, M Fantappie, Rodrigo Nunes-da-Fonseca
Luca Caputo, Cedomir Stamenkovic, Matthew T. Tierney, Maria Sofia Falzarano, Rhonda Bassel-Duby, Alessandra Ferlini, Eric N. Olson, Pier Lorenzo Puri, Alessandra Sacco
Rachel Forman-Rubinsky, Wei Feng, Brent T. Schlegel, Angela Paul, Daniel Zuppo, Katarzyna Kedziora, Donna Stoltz, Simon Watkins, Dhivyaa Rajasundaram, Guang Li, Michael Tsang
Archana Prabahar, Connie S. Chamberlain, Ray Vanderby, William L. Murphy, William Dangelo, Kulkarni Mangesh, Bryan Brown, Barsanjit Mazumder, Stephen Badylak, Peng Jiang
Byron W.H. Mui, Joseph Y. Wong, Toni Bray, Lauren Connolly, Jia Hua Wang, Alexander Winkel, Pamela G. Robey, Kristian Franze, Kevin J. Chalut, Mekayla A. Storer
Asya Bastrich, Daniil Antonov, Aleksandra Podzhilkova, Darya A. Petrova, Svetlana V. Pylina, Dmitriy N. Laptev, Elena A. Sechko, Sergey N. Kuznetsov, Ekaterina A. Vetchinkina, Natalia G. Mokrysheva
Ruiqi Hu, Linda L. Boshans, Bohan Zhu, Peiwen Cai, Yiran Tao, Mark Youssef, Gizem Inak Girrbach, Yingnan Song, Xuran Wang, Alexander Tsankov, Joseph D. Buxbaum, Sai Ma, Nan Yang
Georgios Tsissios, Marion Leleu, Kelly Hu, Alp Eren Demirtas, Hanrong Hu, Toru Kawanishi, Evangelia Skoufa, Alessandro Valente, Antonio Herrera, Adrien Mery, Lorenzo Noseda, Haruki Ochi, Selman Sakar, Mikiko Tanaka, Fides Zenk, Can Aztekin
Madhura P Nijsure, Brendan Tobin, Dakota L Jones, Annemarie Lang, Grey Hallström, Miriam Baitner, Gabrielle I Tanner, Yasaman Moharrer, Christopher J Panebianco, Elizabeth G Seidl, Nathaniel A Dyment, Gregory L Szeto, Levi Wood, Joel D Boerckel
Erin N. Sanders, Hsuan-Te Sun, Saman Tabatabaee, Charles F. Lang, Sebastian G. van Dijk, Yu-Han Su, Andrew LaboD, Javeria Idris, Marco Marchetti, Shicong Xie, Lucy Erin O’Brien
Harshita Mangal, Kyle Linders, Jonathan Turkus, Nikee Shrestha, Blake Long, Xianyan Kuang, Ernest Cebert, J. Vladimir Torres-Rodriguez, James C Schnable
Antoine Nicolas, Panagiotis Papadopoulos, Matteo Caroulle, Bernard Adroher, Magali Goussot, Anne-Sophie Sarthou, Nicolas Arnaud, Aude Maugarny, Patrick Laufs
Joel Rodríguez Herrera, Kenia Aislinn Galván Alcaraz, Ramsés Uriel Albarrán Hernández, Juan Pablo Villa Núñez, Gustavo Rodríguez Alonso, Svetlana Shishkova
Melissa Dipp-Alvarez, J. Luis Lorenzo-Manzanarez, Eduardo Flores-Sandoval, Domingo Méndez-Álvarez, Annie Espinal-Centeno, Jesús León-Ruiz, Fernando Olvera-Martínez, John L. Bowman, Mario A. Arteaga-Vázquez, Alfredo Cruz-Ramírez
Markéta Luklová, Marieke Dubois, Michaela Kameniarová, Klára Plačková, Jan Novák, Romana Kopecká, Michal Karady, Jaroslav Pavlů, Jan Skalák, Sunita Jindal, Ljiljana Tubić, Zainab Quddos, Ondřej Novák, Dirk Inzé, Martin Černý
Tomás Urzúa Lehuedé, Victoria Berdion Gabarain, Miguel Angel Ibeas, Hernan Salinas-Grenet, Romina Acha, Tomas Moyano, Lucia Ferrero, Gerardo Núñez-Lillo, Jorge Perez, Florencia Perotti, Virginia Natali Miguel, Fiorella Paola Spies, Miguel A. Rosas, Ayako Kawamura, Diana R. Rodríguez-García, Ah-Ram Kim, Trevor Nolan, Adrian A. Moreno, Keiko Sugimoto, Norbert Perrimon, Karen A. Sanguinet, Claudio Meneses, Raquel L. Chan, Federico Ariel, Jose M. Alvarez, José M. Estevez
Katie A. Long, Ashleigh Lister, Maximillian R. W. Jones, Nikolai M. Adamski, Rob E. Ellis, Carole Chedid, Sophie J. Carpenter, Xuemei Liu, Anna E. Backhaus, Andrew Goldson, Vanda Knitlhoffer, Yuanrong Pei, Martin Vickers, Burkhard Steuernagel, Gemy G. Kaithakottil, Jun Xiao, Wilfried Haerty, Iain C Macaulay, Cristobal Uauy
A.P Lipinska, G. Cossard, P. Epperlein, T. Woertwein, C. Molinier, O. Godfroy, S. Carli, L. Ayres-Ostrock, E Lavaut, F. Marchi, S. Mauger, C. Destombe, M.C. Oliveira, E.M. Plastino, S.A. Krueger-Hadfield, M.L. Guillemin, M. Valero, S.M. Coelho
Guy Teichman, Mor Sela, Chee Kiang Ewe, Itai Rieger, Sarit Anava, Yael Mor, Péter Szántó, David H. Meyer, Hila Doron, Or Shachar, Vladyslava Pechuk, Hila Gingold, Meital Oren-Suissa, Matthew McGee, Michael Shapira, Björn Schumacher, Oded Rechavi
Feline W. Lindhout, Hanna M. Szafranska, Ivan Imaz-Rosshandler, Luca Guglielmi, Maryam Moarefian, Kateryna Voitiuk, Natalia K. Zernicka-Glover, Daniel J. Lloyd-Davies Sánchez, John Minnick, Mircea Teodorescu, Madeline A. Lancaster
Aleksandra Babicheva, Ibrahim Elmadbouh, Shanshan Song, Michael Thompson, Ryan Powers, Pritesh P. Jain, Amin Izadi, Jiyuan Chen, Lauren Yung, Sophia Parmisano, Cole Paquin, Wei-Ting Wang, Yuqin Chen, Ting Wang, Mona Alotaibi, John Y.-J. Shyy, Patricia A. Thistlethwaite, Jian Wang, Ayako Makino, Y.S. Prakash, Christina M. Pabelick, Jason X.-J. Yuan
Oliver Arnolds, Eve M. Carter, Madison Edwards, Edvard Wigren, Evert Homan, Pauline Ribera, Kirsty Bentley, Martin Haraldsson, Nmesoma Theo-Emegano, Peter Loppnau, Magdalena M Szewczyk, Michelle A Cao, Dalia Barsyte-Lovejoy, Karen Vester, Anna Thrun, Alexandra Amaral, Ralf Lesche, Jens Münchow, W. Felix Zhu, Louisa Temme, Christoph Brenker, Timo Strünker, Michael Sundström, Matthew H. Todd, Aled M Edwards, Claudia Tredup, Opher Gileadi
Eva L Simpson, Ben Wetherall, Liam P Cheeseman, Aleksandra Byrska, Tania Mendonca, Xiaomeng Xing, Alison J Beckett, Helder Maiato, Alexandra Sarginson, Ian A Prior, Geraldine M Hartshorne, Andrew McAinsh, Suzanne Madgwick, Daniel G Booth
Yan Huang, Nina Bucevic, Carmen Coves, Natalia Felipe-Medina, Marina Marcet-Ortega, Nikoleta Nikou, Cristina Madrid-Sandín, Maria Lopez-Panades, Carolina Buza, Neus Ferrer Miralles, Antoni Iborra, Anna Pujol, Alberto M Pendás, Ignasi Roig
Paula Fernandez-Guerra, Pernille Kirkegaard Kjær, Simone Karlsson Terp, Jesper S. Thomsen, Blanca I. Aldana, Herma Renkema, Jan Smeitink, Per H. Andersen, Johan Palmfeldt, Kent Søe, Thomas L. Andersen, Moustapha Kassem, Morten Frost, Anja L. Frederiksen
Danielle Pi, Jonas Braun, Sayantan Dutta, Debabrata Patra, Pauline Bougaran, Ana Mompeón, Feiyang Ma, Stuart R Stock, Sharon Choi, Lourdes García-Ortega, Muhammad Yogi Pratama, Diomarys Pichardo, Bhama Ramkhelawon, Rui Benedito, Victoria L Bautch, David M Ornitz, Yogesh Goyal, M. Luisa Iruela-Arispe
Antonia Weberling, Natalia A. Shylo, Bonnie K. Kircher, Hannah Wilson, Melainia McClain, Marta Marchini, Katherine Starr, Thomas J. Sanger, Florian Hollfelder, Paul Trainor
Jessica C. Edge, Olga Amelkina, Haidee Tinning, Gianluca Giovanardi, Elena Mancinelli, Samantha Gardner, Elton JR Vasconcelos, Virginia Pensabene, Karen Forbes, Mary J O’Connell, Peter Ruane, Niamh Forde
Luke TG Harland, Tim Lohoff, Noushin Koulena, Nico Pierson, Constantin Pape, Farhan Ameen, Jonathan Griffiths, Bart Theeuwes, Nicola K Wilson, Anna Kreshuk, Wolf Reik, Jennifer Nichols, Long Cai, John C Marioni, Berthold Gottgens, Shila Ghazanfar
Vincent Boudreau, Ashley R. Albright, Therese M. Gerbich, Tanner Fadero, Victoria Yan, Ben T. Larson, Aviva Lucas-DeMott, Jay Yung, Solène L.Y. Moulin, Carlos Patiño Descovich, Mark M Slabodnick, Adrien Burlacot, Jeremy R. Wang, Krishna K Niyogi, Wallace F. Marshall
Alma Zuniga Munoz, Kartik Soni, Angela Li, Vedant Lakkundi, Arundati Iyer, Ari Adler, Kathryn Kirkendall, Frank Petrigliano, Bérénice A. Benayoun, Thomas P. Lozito, Albert E. Almada
Luiz Fernando Silva Oliveira, Radhika S. Khetani, Yu-Syuan Wu, Venkata Siva Dasuri, Amanda W. Harrington, Oluwabunmi Olaloye, Jeffrey Goldsmith, David T. Breault, Liza Konnikova, Shannan J. Ho Sui, Amy E. O’Connell
Christopher J. Panebianco, Maha Essaidi, Elijah Barnes, Ashley Williams, Karin Vancíková, Margot C. Labberté, Pieter Brama, Niamh C. Nowlan, Joel D. Boerckel
Dana E. Cobb-Lewis, Devin Synder, Sonya Dumanis, Robert Thibault, Barbara Marebwa, Elisia Clark, Lara St. Clair, Leslie Kirsch, Michelle Durborow, Ekemini Riley
Some of you may have been so fortunate as to receive gift cards for Amazon.com or local bookstores in your Christmas stockings. While I wouldn’t think of dissuading you from purchasing the latest Louise Perry mystery or the memoirs of pre-eminent singers and chefs, I would recommend that you consider a new intellectual thriller, Evolution Evolving.
Imagine if two outstanding evolutionary biologists realized that evolutionary theory cannot explain adaptation and biodiversity without incorporating developmental biology. Imagine them inviting three developmental biologists to work on a book with them to construct the foundations of a more complete evolutionary theory. This book will become Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity, a volume co-authored by evolutionary biologists Kevin Lala and Marcus Feldman, together with evolutionary developmental biologists Tobias Uller, Nathalie Feiner, and me.
This is not a textbook. It is a symposium, a working out of ideas, such that the reader is in dialogue with the book. The book presents evidence for certain views — that plasticity is universal and fundamental for evolution; that organisms are multigenomic holobionts whose symbionts can create new phenotypes and reproductive isolation in the animals they co-create; that there are multiple pathways of inheritance, including symbionts, epialleles, culture, and parental effects, and that some of these modes of inheritance allow the transmission of environmentally induced traits. Most of us had trained to see evolution as changes in gene frequency and development as changes in gene expression. This book organizes evidence that these genocentric explanatory mechanisms are inadequate to explain adaptations or the diversity of life.
Reading the book should make one question and refine one’s own ideas, to question one’s assumptions. Yes, these developmental phenomena happen; but are these differences important enough to change the way you think about evolution, organisms, development, and science? This book presents evidence that these phenomena — developmental plasticity, developmental symbiosis, and epigenetic inheritance systems — are critically important and that evolutionary biology gains enormous explanatory power only if it fully incorporates them. Some people have agreed with us. Marc Kirschner has called the book “a tour de force,” and Jessica Riskin has nominated the volume as a Scholarly Book of the Year, calling it “exhilarating reading. It is not just a book but an intellectual revolution.” Some people have disagreed. Evolutionary biologist David Houle doesn’t think these phenomena are important enough to change the way we think about evolution; moreover, “they are difficult to study.”
Twenty-five years ago, I predicted that evo-devo would cease to exist because it would become part of normative evolutionary biology. This is now happening. Look at the recent articles in PNAS about the genes responsible for the cryptic and mimetic pigmentation of insect wings. They are not classified under “developmental biology,” or even as “evolutionary developmental biology.” Rather, they are listed as “evolution.” Similarly, an evo-devo paper on the rates of prehistoric human teeth and brain development is listed in the “evolution” category, not as “development.” It seems that evolutionary developmental biology is becoming part of evolutionary biology. This book shows the many ways in which these fields can be merged.
Evolution is undergoing a metamorphosis, retaining some features, while jettisoning and repurposing others. It is evolution, but not as we knew it. It is an evolution where proximate and ultimate causes co-mingle, and where developmental mechanisms can bias the directions of evolutionary change. It is an evolutionary biology where the environment not only selects the phenotype but helps construct it. Evolution Evolving is an evolutionary biology book where developmental mechanisms are major players in the evolutionary processes that create adaptations and biodiversity.
The application deadline for the workshop is the 24th of January.
This is a residential workshop at Chicheley Hall on 2nd- 4th April 2025.
An important part of science is getting your results and ideas across to others, through papers, presentations, theses, grant proposals, conversations and interviews. Your audience may include specialists in the field, those from other disciplines, industry, or the general public.
How can you best communicate your science?
This workshop brings together experts in different fields to help you explore and develop your communication skills.
Working together with others on the course you will learn how to structure stories, bridge disciplines, simplify concepts and communicate effectively with a range of audiences. You will also get in-depth tutoring and practice in storytelling and public talks, developing hands-on demonstrations and multimedia (podcasts/YouTube/TikTok).
The Genetics Society will cover travel (within the UK only), accommodation and meals for successful applicants.
Tutors will include: Helen Keen (Award winning comedy writer and performer; author of the Radio 4 series, “It Is Rocket Science!”) First Create the Media (Led by award-winning writer and broadcaster Kat Arney) Alison Woollard (Presenter of the 2013 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and Lecturer at University of Oxford)
Organiser: Jonathan Pettitt (Professor in Genetics, University of Aberdeen; Winner of the 2020 Genetics Society JBS Haldane Lecture) Cristina Fonseca (Science Communicator)
Who can attend?
The course is open to PhD students and postdoctoral researchers working in genetics and related areas.
Carer’s Award. In recognition of carer’s responsibilities, an award of (up to) £60/day will be made available to enable participants with carer responsibilities to attend this workshop. Awardees can spend this money as they think will best support their attendance.
With almost 200 posts published on the Node in 2024, below are just a few of our highlights.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Node in the past year.
Have you read a Node post that you really enjoyed this year? Let us know in the comment section!
Behind the paper stories
Every paper has a story behind it. In these posts, we discover the highs and lows, the unexpected turns, and the fascinating discoveries from the breadth of developmental and stem cell biology.
Using an image or a video as a hook, these short posts bring people’s attention to a paper, a technique or a location that is of interest to the developmental and stem cell biology community.
“No such thing as a standard career path” interview series
In this new series, we chatted to several developmental biologists who have had vastly different career trajectories. Check out all the interviews in this series so far.
The Node correspondents
Correspondents are researchers who are also interested in science communication. They work with the Node team to develop and create content on a broad range of topics. Here are a few highlights of posts produced by the correspondents:
Do you want to broaden your science communication experience alongside your research? We are looking for new correspondents for the Node. Find out more and apply by 20 January 2025!
Even though we have grouped posts into different series, we always welcome posts that don’t necessarily fit into any of our existing blog series.
Remember, the Node is your site: once you’ve registered, you can freely share your blog post, job advert or event notice with the community. If you have any questions, just get in touch.
Over the past 12 months, Development has featured 24 cover images. Now, it’s your chance to pick your favourite!
To find out more about each cover image, you can visit Development’s 2024 issue archive. Thank you to everyone who’s contributed to this collection of wonderful images.
*The poll is now closed. Thank you to everyone who voted!*
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
Issue 6
Issue 7
Issue 8
Issue 9
Issue 10
Issue 11
Issue 12
Issue 13
Issue 14
Issue 15
Issue 16
Issue 17
Issue 18
Issue 19
Issue 20
Issue 21
Issue 22
Issue 23
Issue 24
Visit Development’s 2024 issue archive to find out more about each cover image.
Vote for the 2024 Development cover image of the year
*The poll is now closed. Thank you to everyone who voted!*
The final webinar of 2024 featured two early-career researchers working on gene regulation and will be chaired by Development’s Senior Editor, Alex Eve.
PRESS RELEASE: Millions of people around the world are affected by retinal degenerative diseases. In most cases, loss of vision is caused by damage to the macula, a region in the centre of the retina. The macula is rich in cone photoreceptors – cells important for perceiving colour and seeing finer details. Currently, there are no approved treatments to replace the damaged macula, despite its huge impact on the quality of life. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Montreal, led by Professor Gilbert Bernier, found that blind minipigs receiving retinal transplants made from stem cells showed signs of restored vision. They published their study in the journal Development on 5 December 2024.
In this study, Professor Bernier’s team developed a method to coax stem cells into forming sheets of cells that recapitulate the structure of the human retina. The type of stem cells they used are called human induced pluripotent stem cells – immature cells ‘reprogrammed’ from an adult (mature) cell that can differentiate into any type of cells in the body. Using the stem cells, the researchers made ‘retinal sheets’ that are enriched in immature versions of the cone photoreceptor cells, which could become mature cone cells when cultured in the lab.
After successfully creating the retinal sheets in a dish, the researchers tackled the next challenge: transplanting these sheets into minipigs with damaged macula. Professor Bernier explains, “To get as close as possible to human clinical application, we have chosen minipigs because the size of their eyes is near that of humans and the animals are about the same weight as humans. Hence, all surgeries in our study could be performed by a retinal surgeon.”
Upon transplantation, the researchers found that the retinal grafts were able to integrate into the minipig’s damaged retinal tissue. Encouragingly, the minipigs showed signs of restored vision: new neural connections were formed between the grafted photoreceptor cells and the minipigs’ neural cells, and the scientists could detect neural activity of the photoreceptors at the grafted area when the minipigs were placed in a well-lit room.
Given the pressing need to develop therapeutic interventions against vision loss, researchers around the world are testing different ways to repair damaged macula. “Some approaches use dissociated photoreceptor cells; others create micro-dissected retinal organoids, which are lab-grown ‘mini-organs’ in a dish,” says Professor Bernier. “In contrast, our method allows the spontaneous formation of a flat retinal tissue that is already polarised and organised, as in the human embryonic retina.” He adds that their method can generate large yields of retinal tissue for transplantation.
A limitation in this method lies in the difficulty of controlling the placement and orientation of the grafts during surgery. The macula is only 4mm in diameter – about the length of a grain of rice. “To properly orient, place and stabilise the graft in the retina remains a big surgical challenge,” says Professor Bernier. His team are now working to improve the transplantation success rate. They are validating an experimental retinal surgery device to ensure proper orientation and implantation of the graft at the correct retinal disease site. Although many challenges remain, this study demonstrates the potential of retinal sheet transplantation for treating retinal degenerative diseases.
Integration of a human retinal sheet (graft-dashed line) transplanted into a degenerated minipig retina, showing expression of the photoreceptor-specific markers CRX (in red) and PNA (in green) within the graft. Note the graft polarization and close association with the pig’s eye retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Image Credit: Dr. Andrea Barabino
Enthusiastic about science communication and looking for a chance to broaden your writing experience alongside your research activities? The Node, the 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.
In 2024, we have been working with Alex Neaverson, who’s used her artistic talents to create illustrations for the Node. You can check out Alex’s illustrations about Rita-Levi Montalcini’s extraordinary life, and the post about the work of Millie Race, winner of the Young Embryologist Network Sammy Lee Award. Thank you Alex for making the Node more colourful!
As a correspondent, 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.
You will also gain insight into the publishing industry through meetings with the Community Managers 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.
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
Hopefully some of you will have seen the recent editorial in Development on our approach to peer review. If you haven’t read it yet, please do take a look. In it, James Briscoe (the journal’s Editor-in-Chief) and I discuss some of the initiatives that the journal has taken to try and support authors through the peer review process – including, most recently, encouraging authors to include a ‘Limitations’ section in the discussion of their article, giving you an opportunity to lay out explicitly the scope and extent of your study and, where appropriate, to respond to referee concerns by acknowledging them rather than addressing them experimentally.
Off the back of this editorial, James has also written a blog post that I’d really encourage you to read. Entitled ‘In Praise of Peer Review‘, James sets out why he believes that peer review (in some form) is an invaluable and irreplaceable part of scholarly communication. Alongside the debate that’s been going on around eLife’s exclusion from Web of Science (and subsequent decision to send a partial feed of articles for indexing, the piece has generated some discussion on social media both around whether peer review actually works to guard against publication of fraudulent, sloppy or otherwise dubious papers, and around the degree to which it actually helps to improve papers. I think James has done a great job of setting out the ‘why’ of peer review, but here I thought I’d give my view on the ‘what’: what should a peer review report comprise?
But before I start, let’s remember that – in the majority of cases at least – peer reviewers are both 1) highly knowledgeable in the field of the paper they’ve agreed to review and 2) well-meaning. Yes we all know of cases where papers have been sent to referees that weren’t sufficiently expert or who set out to block publication for political or petty reasons. But these are in the minority – most reviewers are competent to do the job they’ve been asked to, and they want to do it well. And they do it for little or no reward, because they believe that it’s an important part of their responsibility as a member of the academic community. If or how they should be rewarded is a whole other topic that I won’t get into now, but I am incredibly grateful for their dedication.
So, what do I want a referee to do?
Firstly, I want a referee to be respectful. Remember that there are people behind the data and – before hitting the ‘submit’ button on their report – pause to consider the potential impact of your words on the authors, particularly the students and postdocs who’ve actually done the work. At Development, we’re very fortunate that the vast majority of referees do abide by this guidance, but that’s not to say that I’ve not come across the odd report that felt overly combative or dismissive in tone – and that’s not OK.
Secondly, I want the report to be reasonable in terms of the amount of additional work requested. Think about the amount of time (and money!) that might be involved in addressing any particular point and ask how important that point really is to the main story of the paper. Which leads me on to:
Thirdly, I’d ask the referee to focus primarily on addressing the question ‘do the data support the conclusions?’ and not ‘what could the authors do to make the conclusions more interesting?’. While it’s very useful to get expert opinion on how important/relevant/useful/important the paper will be for the community, it’s primarily the editor’s job to decide on whether the paper is – in principle – appropriate for the journal in question.
And finally, I want the referee to be honest about what aspects of the paper they can and can’t (or even did and didn’t) assess. Are you able to judge if the authors have used appropriate statistical analyses? (And if so, did you actually check?!) If the paper contains computational work, do you have the expertise to assess it fully? If the authors deposited data, did you look at it? We fully appreciate that referees can’t always be experts in every area of a paper – particularly an interdisciplinary one – and we try to recruit referees with complementary expertise, but it’s really useful to know what you did and didn’t review.
Most reports I read (and I read a lot!) do largely follow these guidelines, but there is still a definite tendency for a referee report to read a bit like a shopping list of potential experiments and textual revisions. Experienced authors can often read the nuance to decide which points to tackle experimentally, and good editors will (either pro-actively or in response to author queries) help to navigate the revision process. But referees can also do their bit to shepherd papers through the often all-too-painful process of publishing by remembering that there’s both a financial and a temporal limit to how much a group of authors can (and should) do to revise a paper, that a single paper can’t solve a whole research question, and that their opinion isn’t necessarily any more valid than that of the authors (or, for that matter, the other referees).
We could discuss ad nauseam the benefits and problems of pre-publication peer review in its current form (and I frequently do!), and alternative models are beginning to emerge that can act in parallel to, or even replace, our current system. But let’s also think about the little steps that we can take to make the current system less onerous and more constructive – thus easing the path to publication.
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