The Official Newsletter of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society.
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News from the ZDMS President
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Εύρηκα Eureka
I have found…..
Each day I’m greeted in my office by a framed card that my daughters gave to me once, which says, “If I were a scientist working in a big lab, I’d call out
Eureka!
every so often
just to boost morale.” Several things brought
Eureka!
to mind recently.
In Western Australia, a newly-discovered deep lode in a Kalgoorlie mine has provided amazing yields of gold-encrusted quartz ore - $15 million of gold in just a few days.
Eureka!
In this year’s just-announced Australian Museum’s Eureka awards, Ethan Scott and his group at the University of Queensland won the “University of NSW Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research” for their work imaging brain function to understand the neural circuitry behind motion sensation
in vivo
in zebrafish. Congratulations to Ethan and colleagues for their great work, and for putting zebrafish neurobiology research in the limelight
(1)
.
Eureka!
On my way to ZDM11 in Leiden (wasn’t that a great meeting – read the reports below), I called at the Oude Kerk in Delft to see the grave of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the inventor of the microscope and the first person to observe microorganisms. The memorial’s inscription reads
(2)
:
…. QUI NATURÆ PENETRALIA ET PHYSICES ARCANA MICROSCOPIIS AB IPSO INVENTIS ET
MIRABILI ARTE FABRICATUS ASSIDUO STUDIO ET PERSCRUTATIONE DETEGENDO ….
…. who, by detecting through diligent application and scrutiny the mysteries of Nature and the secrets of natural philosophy by means of microscopes invented and marvelously constructed by himself ….
That’s high-end technology-driven biological research, if ever there was. It goes on:
.... ET IDIOMATE BELGICO DESCRIBENDO TOTO TERRARUM ORBE OPTIME MERUIT.
…. and by describing them in the Dutch dialect, has earned the highest praise of the whole world.
He got it published!
Eureka!
At ZDM11, many talks featured applications of the latest microscopy technologies, and we toured the new Netherlands cryo-electron microscopy facility at Leiden University. Zebrafish infectious disease modelers in particular, owe a lot to van Leeuwenhoek.
Eureka!
- that’s one reason why we’re scientists, that’s why we model diseases in zebrafish – it’s for those moments of true discovery, all too rare, but well worth waiting for. I wish you all a year of zebrafish disease modelling
Eureka!
moments, and look forward to hearing about them at ZDM12 in Boston next year.
Sincerely,
Graham Lieschke
President
Zebrafish Disease Models Society
(1)See http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-08-29/eureka-prizes-2018-five-awesome-innovations-australian-research/10179328
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The 11
th
Conference of the
Zebrafish Disease Models Society
Leiden, The Netherlands
10-13 July 2018
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A Local Organizing Committee, comprising Herman Spaink, Jeroen den Hertog, Marcel Schaaf, Ewa Snaar-Jagalska, Annemarie Meijer and Fons Verbeek, recently hosted the 11
th
conference of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society (ZDM11) at The Institute of Biology in Leiden. More than 350 researchers from 31 countries gathered together to foster international relationships and diverse interactions between the zebrafish academic, clinical and industrial research communities. Speakers showcased their best research on cancer, infectious diseases, inflammation, neurological disorders, cardiac and skeletal muscle disease, metabolic diseases, and diseases of the blood, vasculature and digestive organs.
ZDM11 was held at the Gorlaeus Laboratories of the Faculty of Science, with one special afternoon session in the historical Pieterskerk in Leiden city center. The invited speakers of the conference included eighteen leaders in the field of zebrafish disease modelling and 54 excellent speakers selected from abstracts.
The first keynote address was given by Christine Mummery, Professor of Developmental Biology and Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at the Leiden University Medical Center. In the exhilarating ambiance of the Pieterskerk, where this special session was located, she discussed the current state-of-the-art of stem cells with a focus on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and cardiovascular disease.
In the other keynote address, Alexander van Oudenaarden, Director of the Hubrecht Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Quantitative Biology of Gene Regulation at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Utrecht University, discussed new developments in single cell RNA sequencing technologies. He provided great examples of how this technology facilitates identification of individual cell types, some of which had not been previously recognized.
As well as a stimulating scientific program, delegates were also treated to an inspiring social program, the highlight of which was the conference dinner held in evening sunshine in the glorious Hortus Botanica.
At the community session at the end of the meeting, conference participation and poster awards were distributed to the many worthy recipients and everyone agreed that ZDM11 in Leiden had been a great success. In 2019, the 12th edition of the Zebrafish Disease Models Society conference will be held in Boston.
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Plenary Session at Pieterskerk
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Plenary Session at Leiden University
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Women’s Careers in Science:
How to ask for what you want and need to be a successful scientist
Facilitated by Elizabeth Patton and Kirsten Sadler Edepli
Sponsored by L’Oreal and the Melanoma Research Alliance
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This was a very well-attended session and although women clearly outnumbered men, as to be expected, it was great that a brave contingent of men joined in the conversations too.
The first exercise sounds very simple, but nevertheless proved to be quite challenging as well as good fun. Each participant paired-up with another and the two of them took it in turns to ask the other (their boss) for something she felt she really needed to be a successful scientist. The recipient was asked to keep silent (although that generally didn’t happen!) as each scientist made their case for the thing they really wanted. The demands were wide and varied: someone asked for more ready access to a valuable piece of equipment (single cell RNA-sequencer) that a male colleague was hogging, and there were many requests for more flexible work hours, a pay rise to match the salary of a male colleague, a promotion, etc.
After that, a panel of senior women (Corinne Houart, Anna Huttenlocher, Elizabeth Patton, Joan Heath, Kirsten Sadler-Edepli) accepted questions from the floor and their advice flowed freely……
Feedback was very positive and encourages us to think that this should be a permanent session at all future meetings. Anyone who has a specific theme to suggest, please e-mail
joan.heath@wehi.edu.au
.
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Dual Recipients of the First ZDMS Junior Faculty Award for Excellence in Leiden
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Trista North
Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts, USA
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Kazu Kikuchi
Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute
Sydney, Australia
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Dr. Trista North from Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, USA and Dr. Kazu Kikuchi from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Australia were the innaugrual awardees of the ZDMS Junior Faculty Award of Excellence.
The object of the award is to recognize excellence in zebrafish disease modeling research by an early career independent investigator. The sole criterion for this award was assessment of a single, senior-authored manuscript originating from their own research laboratory. Papers were assessed for overall impact in the field and the transformative potential for the greater ZDMS community.
Dr. North’s paper entitled “
The Central Nervous System Regulates Embryonic HSPC Production via Stress-Responsive Glucocorticoid Receptor Signaling
” was published in
Cell Stem Cell
in 2016 (1). This work uncovered an exciting novel role for serotonin-stimulated central regulation of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) production during embryonic development. These findings established a previously unidentified role for whole-organism stress sensing and feedback response during vertebrate embryogenesis, which provides an important means by which the developing organism can co-ordinate the response to environmental and biophysical input to maintain health and viability of the blood system.
Dr. Kikuchi’s paper entitled “
Zebrafish Regulatory T Cells Mediate Organ-Specific Regenerative Programs
” was published in
Developmental Cell
in 2017 (2). This study identified a novel pro-regenerative function for zebrafish regulatory T (zTreg) cells that are essential for tissue regeneration. Using sophisticated genetic tools for labeling and conditional ablation, they demonstrated that
foxp3
a-expressing zTreg cells rapidly migrate from circulating blood into damaged organs to promote regeneration by enhancing the proliferation of tissue-specific precursor cells, including neural stem cells, cardiomyocytes, and Müller glia. Importantly, while zTregs have a conserved role in immunosuppression, the expression of pro-regenerative factors was separate from their canonical immunomodulatory functions.
In recognition of their seminal discoveries, each was invited to give an oral plenary presentation at the ZDMS11 meeting. Registration was waived and a
t
ravel stipend of $1,500 US was provided to help defray costs of attending the meeting. Finally, each received a complimentary 3 year ZDMS membership.
Future nominations will be solicited in early 2019.
Winning manuscripts:
1) Kwan W, Cortes M, Frost I, Esain V, Theodore LN, Liu SY, Budrow N, Goessling W,
North TE
.
The Central Nervous System Regulates Embryonic HSPC Production via Stress-Responsive Glucocorticoid Receptor Signaling
. Cell Stem Cell. 2016;19(3):370-82. PMID: 27424782.
2) Hui SP, Sheng DZ, Sugimoto K, Gonzalez-Rajal A, Nakagawa S, Hesselson D,
Kikuchi K
.
Zebrafish Regulatory T Cells Mediate Organ-Specific Regenerative Programs
. Dev Cell 2017;43(6):659-672. PMID: 29257949.
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ZDM11 Conference Award Recipients
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Viviana Anelli
University of Trento
Trento, Italy
Sasja Blokzijl-Franke
Hubrecht Institute
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Nadja Brun
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Massachusetts, USA
Hannah Brunsdon
Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine University of Edinburgh
Midlothian, UK
Siobhan Crilly
The University of Manchester
Manchester, United Kingdom
Karen Doggett
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
Victoria, Australia
Shuning He
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Massachusetts, USA
Ellen Hoffman
Yale University
Connecticut, USA
Sowjanya Kallakuri
Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine
Singapore
Betelhem Kassa
INRS-IAF
Quebec, Canada
Aya Ludin Tal
Harvard University
Massachusetts, USA
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Harriet Manley
Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University
Victoria, Australia
Rui Monteiro
University of Birmingham
West Midlands, UK
Nikolay Orgryzko
University of Edinburgh, UK
Mirana Ramialison
Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute
Victoria, Australia
Christoph Schuerch
University Hospital Basel
Scotland, UK
Angie Serrano
University of Utah – EIHG
Utah, USA
Yuki Shimizu
Waseda University
Tokyo, Japan
Matthew Stoyek
Dalhousie University
Nova Scotia, Canada
Kelsey Temprine
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, USA
Rob Christiaan Van Wijk
Leiden University
Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands
Zoltan Kristof Varga
Institute of Experimental Medicine
Pest, Hungary
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ZDM11 Conference Award Recipients
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Long-term in vivo imaging reveals tumor-specific dissemination and captures dynamic tumor interaction in zebrafish xenografts
Nandini Asokan
Centre for Regenerative Therapies
Saxony, Germany
Shp1 phosphatase signaling in vivo in a zebrafish model
Patra Bakker
Hubrecht Institute
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Cancer modeling by Transgene Electroporation in Adult Zebrafish (TEAZ)
Scott Callahan
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
New York, USA
Mito-Stat3 regulates cell proliferation by promoting mitochondrial gene expression
Margherita Peron
University of Padua
Padua, Italy
A novel zebrafish model of congenital neutropenia and Shwachman-Diamond-like phenotype
Christoph Schuerch
University Hospital Basel
Basel-Stadt, Switzerland
Notch inhibition rescues cardiovascular phenotype in zebrafish with Kabuki Syndrome
Angie Serrano
University of Utah
Utah, USA
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ZDM11 Poster Award Recipients
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The 13th International Zebrafish Conference
20-24, June 2018
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The 13th International Zebrafish Conference, sponsored by the International Zebrafish Society (IZFS), was held June 20-24, 2018, returning to Madison, WI, as a huge success. Nearly 800 scientists attended from four continents and 29 countries, which was facilitated by 58 travel awards given out by IZFS. The meeting was packed with talks in plenary and concurrent sessions, as well as technical and career development workshops.
As is tradition for this conference, all talks except four were chosen from the abstracts. Two keynote talks were given, one by Judith Kimble and a second by Bill Bement, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Judith Kimble discussed how she was influenced by her postdoctoral experience in the UK at the MRC in Cambridge, where there was an intense focus on asking important questions, which inspired her research directions and career. She presented her research on germ line development in C. elegans that began with studies in the 1980’s revealing inductive cell interactions in germ cell maintenance to Notch signaling involvement and the interesting role of low complexity proteins in RNA biology, as well as translational regulation as a key mechanism acting in germline stem cells. Bill Bement discussed his studies on the cell cortex as an excitable medium in cytokinesis, showing spiraling waves of Actin polymerization and Rho activity in Xenopus, as well as the starfish. The audience was wowed by the beautiful movies, which revealed a self-propagating system.
The Chi-Bin Chen and Streisinger awards were given out at the conference by the IZFS. The Streisinger award is given to a senior investigator who has made significant and lasting impacts on the zebrafish field. This third Streisinger award was given to Monte Westerfield, who has made numerous important advances to the zebrafish field including establishing ZFIN, the zebrafish informational database that is used daily by thousands of researchers around the globe.
Furthermore, he undertook establishing yet another major resource for the community, the Zebrafish International Resource Center, ZIRC, which serves as a repository for fish strains, as well as a distribution center for these lines and other reagents. Monte’s lab also generated the first transgenics in the field, and he has made important advances in the study of motor neuron development and more recently on using the zebrafish to evaluate candidate human disease genes, and in so doing, generating important disease models. Monte gave an inspiring talk on these studies at the conference.
The Chi-Bin Chen (CBC) award was given to Lindsey Barske, a now former postdoc from Gage Crump’s lab at USC. The CBC award recognizes outstanding research of a trainee or recent independent investigator, who additional exhibits the openness and generosity of Chi-Bin. As a postdoc Lindsey was highly productive, publishing multiple papers on the transcriptional networks regulating craniofacial development, while at the same time generously shared various gene knockouts that she had generated broadly with the community and additionally engaged in numerous outreach activities. Lindsey gave an outstanding talk on her postdoc studies, which she is now continuing in her own lab at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
While a planned BBQ picnic was rained out, the final evening party at Union South was a resounding hit! The live band was wonderfully entertaining and was as fascinated by us as scientists dancing avidly on the dance floor, as we were of them for their great rock and roll rhythms.
The next International Zebrafish Conference will be in Suzhou, China June 12-16, 2019, which is sure to be a spectacular event.
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Highlights in the Zebrafish Community
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Upcoming Zebrafish Related Meetings
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8th Strategic Conference of Zebrafish Investigators
January 12 - 16, 2019
Asilomar Conference Grounds
Pacific Grove, California
2019 International Zebrafish Conference
June 12-16, 2019
Suzhou, China
2019 Zebrafish Disease Models Society - ZDM12
July 2019
Boston, Massachusetts
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Newsletter Contributors:
Jeroen den Hertog, Joan Heath, Sarah Hughes, David Langenau, Graham Lieschke, Mary Mullins & Richard White
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Zebrafish Disease Models Society
1023 Rt 146 Clifton Park, NY 12065
518-399-7181
Info@zdmsociety.org
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