Spotlight – An interview with Ida Chow

“We need to reach out and teach people more about developmental biology, and one way of doing this is to engage with the younger generation and speak their language.”

Ida Chow is the Executive Director of the Society for Development Biology (SDB). As well as managing the society, Ida organises and participates in many of the society's educational and outreach events. We caught up with Ida at the recent SDB Annual Meeting to ask her about her background and to find out more about the various SDB-run activities that she's involved in.

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Primer – GATA transcription factors in development and disease

Mathieu Tremblay, Oraly Sanchez-Ferras and Maxime Bouchard provide an overview of the GATA family of transcription factors during mammalian development and emphasizes their pleiotropic role in cell lineage decisions and early organogenesis.

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The people behind the papers – Joe Shawky & Lance Davidson

The construction of complex three-dimensional tissue structures during embryogenesis requires precise control of cell and tissue mechanics. The Xenopus embryo provides a powerful tool for interrogating this relationship, as demonstrated by a recent Development paper reporting the use of tissue explants to test predictions of mechanical models. The Node caught up with first author and recent graduate Joseph Shawky and his supervisor Lance Davidson to hear more about the work.

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Travelling Fellowship – Developing a framework of support

Peter Baillie-Johnson was working on the generation of elongating gastruloids to mimic the first stages of axial elongation in the mouse embryo, but was limited by aggregates adhering to the surface of culture plates. A Travelling Fellowship from Development allowed Peter to visit Matthias Lutolf in Switzerland, whose lab specialises in the use of engineered PEG hydrogels that can be produced to defined physicochemical specifications. There, Peter optimised a protocol for producing gastruloids and developed a strategy for individually embedding them in small volumes of PEG hydrogels. Read more about his story here.

Where could you research take you? Join Peter and apply for the next round of Travelling Fellowships from Development by 30 November 2018.

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Workshop – Chromatin-based regulation of development

We are pleased to announce a Workshop, organised by Benoit Bruneau and Joanna Wysocka, focusing on the field of chromatin biology and its potential for revealing exciting new insights into developmental processes. The Workshop will be held in April 2019 at Wiston House, UK. Ten funded early-career places are available - apply here before 21 December 2018.

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Call for papers – Development at the single cell level

Development is pleased to welcome submissions for an upcoming special issue on ‘Development at the single cell level’, guest-edited by Allon Klein and Barbara Treutlein. This special issue aims to showcase the best research in stem cell and developmental biology, building on the rapidly evolving tools of single cell analysis. Extended submission deadline: 15 November 2018.

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preLights – Three-dimensional tissue stiffness mapping in the mouse embryo supports durotaxis during early limb bud morphogenesis

Natalie Dye highlights a recent preprint from Yu Sun and colleagues, describing how a new way of measuring the mechanical properties of bulk tissues in vivo identifies a stiffness gradient in the developing limb that correlates with patterns of cell migration.

Catch up with recent preLights selected for the developmental biology community in our latest Table of Contents.

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Articles of interest in our sister journals

Zebrafish knock-ins swim into the mainstream
Sergey V. Prykhozhij, Jason N. Berman. Disease Models & Mechanisms 2018 11: dmm037515

Bicuspid aortic valve formation: Nos3 mutation leads to abnormal lineage patterning of neural crest cells and the second heart field
Joshua C. Peterson, Mary Chughtai, Lambertus J. Wisse, Adriana C. Gittenberger-de Groot, Qingping Feng, Marie-José T. H. Goumans, J. Conny VanMunsteren, Monique R. M. Jongbloed, Marco C. DeRuiter. Disease Models & Mechanisms 2018 11: dmm034637

Ubiquitin A-52 residue ribosomal protein fusion product 1 (Uba52) is essential for preimplantation embryo development
Jiude Mao, Chad O'Gorman, Miriam Sutovsky, Michal Zigo, Kevin D. Wells, Peter Sutovsky. Biology Open 2018 7: bio035717