SEB Bulletin January 2008
Travel Grant Winners
- Meher Nigar University of Aberdeen BioAsia 2007, Bankok
- Orea Anderson Queens University Belfast 4th International Conference on Biology & Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels, Cape Town
- Simon Fisher Kings College London Society of Neuroscience Conference, San Diego
- Hari Kumar Tata Institute, India Society of Neuroscience Conference, San Diego
- Gillian Lye University of Stirling Collaborative visit to Dr Roddy Hale, New Zealand
- Francesca Mackenzie MRC Mammalian Genetics Unit 18th International Symposium on ALS/MND, Toronto
- Bicheng Yang TEGASC Crops Research Centre Plant and Animal Genome XVI Conference, San Diego
- Moutaz El Kadri University of Liverpool American Heart Association Meeting, Florida
- Kimberley Bennett University of Dundee 17th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, Cape Town
- Yves Bourles IFREMER Innovation in the Exploitation and Management of Shellfish Resources, Vlissingen, Netherlands
- Annina Zollinger University of St Andrews 17th Biennial Conference on the Biology of Marine Mammals, Cape Town
13th International Conference of the European Association of Fish Pathologists
Thanks to the SEB travel grant I was able to attend the 13th International Conference of the European Association of Fish Pathologists in Grado, Italy between the 17th and 21st of September 2007. Grado provided an idyllic location for the conference; it is a small island off the north-east coast of Italy between Venice and Trieste. The 300+ delegates that attended were treated to some delicious local cuisine and of course some vino. Well, plenty of vino actually.
The theme of the conference was 'Diseases of Fish and Shellfish' and covered many aspects of fish health including epidemiology, immunology, bacteriology and vaccination. I was there to present the vaccination study from my PhD entitled 'Vaccination of Atlantic salmon against the causative agent of marine flexibacteriosis'. It was the first time I was able to present this work to an international audience and I received a tremendous amount of feedback and queries from my peers.
I would like to sincerely thank the SEB for providing financial support for my trip to Grado. It provided me with an opportunity to enhance my communication skills and to obtain information that was not only relevant to my study but also what is being achieved in my area of research.
Rebecca van Gelderen
University of Tasmania
Measurement of putative iodothyronine metabolites in human and rat tissues.
Visit to Portland, Oregon
Thyroid hormones (iodothyronines) are released from the thyroid gland, mainly in the form of T4, which is metabolised in target tissues to the transcriptionally active T3 and transcriptionally inactive rT3. The well-studied effects of thyroid hormones are those that are instigated through changes in transcription of target genes. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that there are non-genomic actions of thyroid hormone that are currently not well understood. The iodothyronines are putative substrates for the Aromatic Amino acid Decarboxylase (AADC) enzyme with the products of such action
being the endogenous compounds iodo-thyronamines.
Iodothyronamines have been shown to be present in various animal tissues including thyroid hormone target tissues. One of these, 3-iodothyronamine (T1AM), has been shown to have profound whole-body effects in vivo, with reductions in heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output and body temperature occurring, along with a switch from carbohydrate to fat as a fuel source, following T1AM administration. I am most interested in the possible role of iodothyronamines, T1AM in particular, in modulating fat metabolism in adipose tissue. T1AM has been shown to be present in adipose, but it has not been shown if the iodothyronamine concentrations vary depending on thyroid status. It is possible that the concentrations of iodothyronamines change proportionally with changes in thyroid hormone levels and that they have a role in thyroid hormone signalling.
Thanks to money awarded to myself by the Company of Biologists and the Society for Experimental Biology, I was able to visit Prof Thomas Scanlan's laboratory at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon. This lab has pioneered a technique for measuring iodothyronamines in extracts prepared from tissues involving a solid-phase extraction protocol and quantification by High Performance Liquid Chromatography coupled to tandem Mass Spectroscopy (HPLC-MS/MS). Some of the results I obtained while I was at OHSU are shown on the attached poster that was presented internally as part of the University of Dundee PhD programme. I was able to travel to Portland to learn this technique and have subsequently been able to perform the same technique upon returning to the UK. This will enable me to investigate whether there are changes in the concentrations of iodothyronamines present in samples I have obtained from experimental animals under different treatments and human samples with aberrant thyroid function as well as control subjects.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists for awarding me money to facilitate this visit. It has been a valuable experience and I hope that it will allow me to take my work a lot further than I would have been able to otherwise.
Fiona Mitchell
University of Dundee
ROS in Plants 2007
The Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists Travel Grant supported my attendance at “Reactive Oxygen Species in Plants 2007”, which took place at Het Pand in Gent, Belgium in September 2007. Over 200 delegates from 43 countries attended this three-day meeting. Amongst these delegates were the three chief scientists responsible for the elucidation of the Asada-Halliwell-Foyer pathway and each gave an excellent and inspiring keynote lecture. The other oral presentations were split into eight sessions: 1. Antioxidants and health, 2. Plant-microbe interactions, 3. Production scavenging and detection, 4. Abiotic stresses, 5. Redox signalling and gene expression, 6. Cross-talk and signal transduction, 7. Plant growth and development, 8. Signal transduction and “omics”. Each session contained presentations that were both relevant to my research and highly interesting.
I was selected to present a poster at the meeting under the title 'Transgenic Expression of APX, CAT and GAR in Arabidopsis - Modulation of the Oxidative Response in Roots'. During the poster sessions, I received some very constructive advice about the direction of my research and had fruitful discussions with other ROS-focussed scientists. I also benefited from the other poster presentations on display, which displayed techniques that may prove useful in my work in the future.
This conference was a fantastic opportunity for me to interact with other researchers in my field and I feel I have benefited greatly from listening to presentations and presenting my own work. It has supplied me with the motivation to achieve all I can during the final year of my PhD and beyond. Again, I thank the Society of Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists for the travel award and also the organisers of the meeting for doing such a wonderful job.
Michael Page
University of Bath
Workshop, The Netherlands; Research visit to the Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre
I would like to start by thanking the SEB for supporting my endeavour to undertake a rather extensive overseas trip earlier this year. Thanks in part to SEB funding I was able to travel overseas to participate in a workshop, conduct research in a laboratory and attend a conference.
My first stop was Wageningen, Netherlands for the Fish Immunology Workshop organized by the Cell Biology and Immunology group at Wageningen University. Although this workshop is run annually, the content is constantly being revised so that participants are presented with the latest and greatest findings in the world of fish immunology. There was also a laboratory component to the workshop that allowed us to try some of the techniques we heard about.
After the workshop, I traveled to Aberdeen, Scotland where I performed some of my PhD research at the Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre (SFIRC), University of Aberdeen. My research is focused on understanding the striped trumpeter immune system as it relates to ontogeny and response to pathogens, and I was hoping to learn some skills that would allow me to investigate these areas on a molecular level. During my time at the SFIRC, I was lucky enough to work under the direction of both Prof. Chris Secombes and Dr. Steve Bird - two very well respected fish immunologists. Over the eight weeks, I was able to clone and sequence a number of immune genes from the striped trumpeter. I had hoped to sequence two immune genes during my visit, so I was thrilled when I managed to sequence six. These findings will allow me to investigate the ontogeny of the antibody response in the striped trumpeter as well as investigate the innate immune response to pathogens. Being at the SFIRC was a great learning experience for me as I was immersed in a laboratory that is devoted to finding, sequencing, and characterising immune genes. It was also great to be surrounded by students and post-docs working on such a wide variety of species
The last stop on my overseas adventure was the 7th International Symposium on Fish Immunology held at the University of Stirling, Scotland. This conference is held every three years and brings together fish immunologists from all corners of the earth. There were a number of interesting talks and it was great to learn about the research that other groups are performing. I presented at talk entitled “Characterisation and Ontogeny of the Antibody Molecule in the Striped Trumpeter” during the session on Ontogeny of Emerging Species. I think the talk was well received as I was approached by a number of people interested in my work afterwards.
Once again in would like to thank the SEB for their support of my overseas experience.
Jen Covello
University of Tasmania
Joint Meeting of the Slovak Physiological Society, the Physiological Society and the Federation of European Physiological Societies
The Joint Meeting of The Slovak Physiological Society, The Physiological Society and The Federation of European Physiological Societies was a large international meeting with attendance from throughout Europe and beyond covering a wide range of subjects within and with relevance to the subject of Physiology.
Besides a number of keynotes lecture from established figures in their fields there was a varied and exciting programme of symposia covering wide ranging subjects from intracellular mechanisms and structure to circadian biology and physical and clinical physiology. These symposia allowed time for exciting discussions as did the additional oral and poster sessions, ensuring a vast array of topics could be presented.
Being able to attend the meeting was a valuable opportunity for me to present my work on the 'Regulation of the mouse Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 promoter by circadian and hypoxic factors - a conserved mechanism with humans' as an oral presentation at the main conference and gain feedback. I also benefited from presenting my work to my peers in the European Young Physiologists Symposium, which generated some interesting discussion.
I would like to sincerely thank the SEB Company of Biologists for enabling me to take up this personal and career-development opportunity, which may not have been possible without their support.
Joanne Singletary
University of Leicester
14th International Congress of Photosynthesis
The 14th International Congress of Photosynthesis was held in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow from the 23rd to the 27th July 2007. In 25 sessions all aspects of photosynthesis were covered ranging from quantum mechanics, atomic level structures and ultra-fast dynamics on picosecond timescale, over signalling, transport, regulation, metabolism and organelle communication to artificial photosynthesis, evolution, global climate changes, biogeochemistry, education as well as modern agriculture and forestry. The preceding two day satellite meeting in Drymen “light-harvesting systems workshop” hosted nearly 150 scientists from many overlapping disciplines and focused on every aspect of antenna complexes.
Given that about 1000 participants attended the main congress, it provided lots of opportunities to learn about new scientific concepts and research ideas and for discussions with well-known scientists as well as fellow Ph.D. students.
The poster sessions at the main congress and especially at the more informal satellite meeting proved very beneficial for me. I was able to explore my topic from different angles and to make arrangements for a continuative collaboration. Furthermore I submitted a paper about parts of my work to be published in a satellite meeting related special issue of Photosynthesis Research.
All things considered the two meetings were very absorbing and productive and I really appreciate the opportunity to attend both, granted by the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists. Thanks a lot!
Silvia Haferkamp
University of Munster, Germany
7th International Congress of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry meeting, Salvador, Brazil
As an Australian student it is very difficult to attend International meetings, largely due to the geographic distance and associated high costs. I believe that attendance at such meetings is extremely important to showcase work done in Australia and to assist young researchers like myself in making contacts and gaining knowledge and advice from international experts. I would like to thank the Company of Biologists and the Society of Experimental Biology for their generous financial assistance that helped to make my attendance at the 7th International Congress of Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry meeting at Salvador, Brazil possible.
My contribution to the meeting was presentation of a poster “Geographic variation in little penguin thermoregulation”. This work and my overall PhD project “Influences of geography and environment on the energetics and behaviour of little penguins” fitted in well with the theme of the conference 'Integrative Physiology meets Biodiversity' as it investigates the conservation physiology of a native species and how it interacts and adapts to variability within its environment. It also complemented a number of the presentations at the meeting that investigated variation in metabolic rate (and its heritability or repeatability) within and between populations.
As it is a comparative meeting, ICCPB Brazil 2007 was a unique gathering of experts in a number of disciplines. This gave me a great opportunity to present my work to a broad audience and exchange comments and ideas about my work with not only experts in the field but also people from different and often diverse backgrounds. A number of the symposiums at the meeting were extremely beneficial not only in their content, but also to see how to structure and present my work to make it interesting and informative to a wide audience.
I feel that I gained a lot from attending my first international meeting, from simple things like putting faces to names on the papers I've read, to contacts that will help further my career in science such as discussing future project collaborations and post-doc positions. Thanks again to the Company of Biologists and the Society of Experimental Biology for their support.
Lyndal Horne,
La Trobe University
11th Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden
I am very appreciative to the SEB and Company of Biologists for providing me with a travel grant so that I could attend the meeting. The conference was a huge success with almost 1400 delegates from all over the world from a very diverse range of disciplines. There were plenary lectures every morning covering topics such as evolution in the tropics, the peppered moth and the evolution of sex. Alongside this, in the evening, there was presentation of the John Maynard Smith prize, this year won by Andy Gardener a theoretical biologist from the University of Edinburgh. Among his achievements are developing the theoretical underpinnings to the phenomenon of spite, which his lecture was centred on. The John Maynard Smith prize is exclusively for young scientists at the start of their career and I think it is an excellent way of recognizing young scientists who have shown exceptional progress in their field.
There were around 30 symposia to choose from and afternoon poster sessions linking to each symposium. Of particular interest to me was a session on the origin of agriculture, which concentrated on crop evolution and the domestication and spread of agriculture. Attending this session was particularly beneficial to me as it allowed me to see the progress of many researchers whose work I have followed throughout my PhD. I had been selected to present my work in this session after submitting an abstract to the organizing committee. My presentation was titled 'Response of wild C4 crop progenitors to sub ambient CO2 highlights a possible role in the origin of agriculture.' The talk was well received with good feedback from people attending the session. It gave me a very valuable opportunity to present an idea on the origin of agriculture that appears to be known only by a limited audience, and this created a lot of interesting discussion both during and outside the symposium. Other sessions of particular interest to me were on floral evolution, and ecology and genetics of life history timing in plants.
As well as an excellent programme of talks, the conference provided an opportunity for me to renew connections with researchers I have previously met and make contact with researchers from other laboratories. My attendance at this meeting was definitely worthwhile, and I would like to thank again both the SEB and CoB for their support.
Jennifer Cunniff
University of Sheffield
14th European Congress of Herpetology 2007, Porto, Portugal
With the support of the SEB and COB Travel Grant, I was able to attend the 14th European Herpetological Congress that was held in Porto, Portugal. This meeting was very important for me from 2 reasons: 1) this was my first international congress I participated in; 2) by presenting my preliminary results I met many scientists whose work is very important for my future career. I gave a 15-minute talk about predation experiments I performed in Madagascar, both in the field and in the captivity. In my experiments I was testing the efficiency of aposematic colouration in Madagascan poisonous frogs, by performing different predation experiments. Since these were only preliminary experiments to establish the method, I got some very nice ideas, suggestions and comments for my future experiments from other participants of the congress.
The Congress itself welcomed more then 260 people that participated in 11 sessions. Although it was European Congress, numerous scientists from other continents also took part in it. And this fact made this congress even more important for me, because I was able to meet some people from around the world that are doing many interesting studies, from many different areas (behaviour, morphology, ecology, phylogeography, conservation…). As well I introduced myself through my work and obtained many new contacts. Except for the official part of the congress, organizers prepared a farewell party at their Institute, giving the participants great opportunity to meet other scientists in informal atmosphere and discuss their work and possible cooperation. Next day after the congress we had a field trip to the sand dunes where we had the opportunity to see some of Portuguese nature and to spend some more time with others in more relaxed environment.
Once again, I am very grateful for this travel grant because it helped a lot for development of my future scientific career.
Olga Jovanovic
Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany
International Pollination Symposium 2007, Ames, Iowa, U.S.A.
With the contribution from the Society of Experimental Biology's Travel Fund I was this year able to attend the International Pollination Symposium. I am currently beginning my third year of a PhD at Reading University investigation the impacts of pesticides on pollinator biodiversity and pollinator services. At the Symposium I was able to present my work with a poster alongside many other students and post-docs from all over the world. There was designated poster viewing sessions which gave the opportunity to speak with interested parties about my research and exchange ideas and information.
The symposium had a full line up of speakers presenting their current research in the field of pollination which gave me an insight into current developments in my area and provided ideas for future avenues of investigation both for my PhD research and beyond. The symposium also organised a couple of field visits to see the local wildlife and both these and evening socialising allowed contacts to be made with other international scientists in my field.
The experience was very a very positive one and has left me better informed and motivated in my research.
Claire Brittain
University of Reading