Victor and Liz arrived in Okinawa at Sesoko Station right on time to catch the first Acropora digitifera spawning a few hours later. Several colonies produced plenty of gamete bundles, which were fertilized at a high rate of success to produce tens of thousands of larvae. So, together with the Acropora tenuis larvae from Friday night, spawning season is off with bang! More spawning is expected tonight and in the coming nights this week. After a few days of intense larval care, the larvae will be ready for experiments in a few days. The weather is definitely in the rainy season, with torrential downpours, but with such successful spawning already and more to come, spirits are high!
New Guse Lab paper in eLife
Check it out: https://elifesciences.org/articles/43923
Natascha´s Goodbye
It´s hard to believe but after 6 years in the lab, Natascha is up for new endeavours in the Pfalz. Good luck with the new house and job!
EMBO Workshop “PHYSICS OF LIFE: BRIDGING PHYSICS AND BIOLOGY” at Birzeit, Palestine
The was the second joint Birzeit-EMBO YIP workshop, following a first molecular biology workshop held in 2010. The meeting was co-sponsored by Birzeit University and UCL’s Global Engagement fund. It was aimed to bring together a diverse group of international scientists with undergraduate students from Birzeit University and other Universities in Palestine to engage in scientific discussions and exchange. The scientific program was divided into four sessions, with talks by international speakers and local faculty, and a poster session where students presented their work. The opportunities for experimental research are rather limited in Palestine due to the lack of funding and infrastructure and many local projects rely on theoretical work. Thus, the idea was to focus on the physics of living systems, which involves both theory and experiment. The ultimate goal was to inspire participating undergraduate students to extend their scientific education bridging theory and experiments in Palestine and abroad.
EMBO sponsors two summer fellowships for Palestinian students who wish to carry out a project in an EMBO YIP lab in 2019 or 2020.
Special Open Access Issue on Tardigrades in CSH Protocols
Bob Goldstein and colleagues just published a wonderful open access Cold Spring Harbor Protocols issue summarizing the available toolkit for tardigrades (Hypsibius exemplaris). Check it out!
Aiptasia research in six languages
Okinawa Field Work Trip 2018 – by Ira & Diana
On arrival this year the coral spawning had already happened and we could set-up experiments without delay. Thanks to our Japanese collaborators we had many bowls full of larvae to choose from. A big thank you to them for their help and support!
Acropora digitifera larvae were especially healthy this year and the abundance of material resulted in an abundance of cleaning and sampling, which often kept us busy until late in the evening.
But – of course – we made sure not to miss out on beautiful Okinawa snorkeling and delicious food.
Our outdoor activities were supported by the weather, which was a lot better than previously predicted.
A special pleasure was the meeting, greeting and discussions with old and new fellow researchers at the Sesoko Station.
Sebastian Rupp joins the lab
Happy 2018 and welcome to our new Postdoc Sebastian Rupp! He joins as a CellNetworks Postdoctoral Fellow and will look into the mechanisms of symbiont spreading within Aiptasia larvae.
And the PhD title goes to….
Madeline! Congratulations! Well done, Dr. Bucher.
Killer hat, killer food. Please note Madeline´s speciality: “half-eaten cakes…”
Emerging Models at ASCB 2017
The ASCB|EMBO Meeting 2017 took place at the beginning of December in Philadelphia. It was the first joint meeting of two of the most influential international organizations, ASCB and EMBO, within the field of molecular cell biology.
After the bis success of last year’s special interest group on emerging models in cell biology, Bob Goldstein and Mansi Shrivastava organised again a similar session with a complete new line up of speakers including a talk about Aiptasia:
After the session, all speakers participated in a Q & A session where general topics concerning labs establishing and working with emerging models are facing: small scientific communities, difficulties in finding funding for painstaking but crucial technique development and finding the right journals for publishing. However, overall everybody agreed that emerging models are incredibly rewarding and encourage young researchers to give them a try. To continue the discussions and strengthen the community, all speakers and friends went out for food and drinks. All in all, a big success and I truly enjoyed my meeting participation and immersion into the constantly growing Emerging Models Community.
