SEB Bulletin July 2006 - Travel Grant Winners and Reports
Interested in applying for a travel grant? Visit www.sebiology.org
Deadlines for applications for the next two rounds are: 30 September 2006 & 30 December 2006
| Daniel William Baker | University of British Columbia | Field work in Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, with Dr. Don Jackson and Colin Brauner, INPA Instituto Nacional. |
| Jane Behrens | University of Copenhagen | SEB AMM at the University of Kent at Canterbury |
| Susan Bosch | University of Stellenbosch | Society for Neuroscience |
| Caroline Bowen | Oxford University | European Worm Meeting, Crete, Greece |
| Lucille S Brudenell | University of Bath | XIXth International Congress on Sexual Plant Reproduction, Budapest, July 2007. |
| Simon Edward Bull | University of Bath | 14th Triennial Symposium of the International Society for Tropical Root Crops, Kerala |
| Amrita Chatterjee | Calcutta University | Two week training course ‘Applied plant conservation’, University of Denver, USA |
| Kwang-Kuk Cho | University of Strathclyde | 106th Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Florida |
| Alireza Dadkhah | Universiry of Mashad | SEB AMM, University of Kent at Canterbury |
| Philip Dean | University of Leeds | 8th International Congress on Plant Molecular Biology in Adelaide |
| Ioannis Eleftherianos | University of Bath | 7th International Workshop on Molecular Biology and Genetics of the Lepidoptera, Crete, Greece |
| Catherine Eyre | Cardiff University | 8th International Mycological Congress, Cairns, Australia |
| Vipul Gohel | University of Hertfordshire | American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, San Francisco, USA |
| Jayne Griffiths | Rothamsted Research | 8th International Congree of Plant Molecular Biology in Adelaide, Australia |
| Lee Hamilton | Dundee University | FASEB conference 2006 in San Francisco, USA |
| Audrey Heppleston | McGill University | Research visit to Dr Cheryll Tickle lab, University of Dundee |
| Glenn Lurman | Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research | Research visit to Ocean Sciences Centre in St John’s, Canada in collaboration with Kurt Gamperl |
| Eliana Maffettone | Warwick HRI | 8th Conference of EFPP & BSPP Presidential Meeting 2006 |
| Ghzaleh Masnavi | University of Manchester | 8th congresss of plant molecular biology, Adelaide, Australia |
| Anne Medhurst | University of Nottingham | 8th International Congress on plant molecular biology, Adelaide, Australia |
| Charlotte Elizabeth Miller | Royal Veterinary College | SEB AMM at the University of Kent at Canterbury |
| PhilipMolloy | University of East Anglia | 20th Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology, San Jose, USA |
| Arun Dev Sharma | Lyallpur Khalsa College | ASPB 2006 conference at the Hynes Convention Centre, Boston, USA. |
| Toru Tsuzaki | University of Southampton | Research visit in collaboration with the University of Southampton |
| Rebecca Upson | Sheffield University | 5th International Congresss on Mycorrhiza in Granada, Spain |
| Milena Vareska | Cranfield University | Summer Tropicals 2006 Conference, Quebec City, Canada |
| Judith Visser | The Royal Veterinary College | 5th world congresss of biomechanics, Munich, Germany |
8th International Workshop on Seeds: germinating new ideas.
I would like to thank the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists for providing me with the opportunity to attend the 8th International Workshop on Seeds organised by the International Society for Seed Science. Seed scientists were dispersed from labs worldwide to attend the meeting in May 2005, held at the Sheraton Brisbane Hotel, Queensland.
I was fortunate to be selected to give an oral presentation of work from my PhD entitled ‘Heat shock mediated germination of Carica papaya seeds’ in the seed germination and dormancy session. Papaya seeds show increased dormancy after drying and my research has focussed on aspects of the germination conditions which can overcome this dormancy. Having survived questioning, I was gratified by the interest shown in my work over lunch. The advice and new ideas which I received were most welcome, as was the opportunity to speak to fellow papaya-seed researchers from Griffith University (Brisbane) and CCRT, Hawaii.
The germination and dormancy sessions were highly relevant to my studies, but I also attended enlightening sessions on seed development, conservation and ecology. In addition to the set presentations, the organisers also scheduled panel discussions with the key speakers in each area, allowing greater consideration of the hot topics arising from the presentations. A recurring theme was the involvement of metabolism in changes in dormancy status, viability and germination potential during storage of desiccated seeds, possibly arising through heterogeneity of moisture content in the seed tissues.
One session was devoted to Australian native seed research, so encompassing a diverse range of topics including helicopter seed collecting from the fossil tree Wollemia nobilis, stimulation of seed germination by smoke and fire and the conservation of germplasm from wild relatives of Australian tree-crops.
The information presented on Australian vegetation habitats during this session served as an interesting introduction to my personal exploration of SE Queensland!
I am very grateful to the SEB for my experiences down-under.
Rachel Webster
University of Manchester
Visit to The Sino-French Laboratory in Computer Science, Automation and Applied Mathematics
The Sino-French Laboratory in Computer Science, Automation and Applied Mathematics (LIAMA-CASIA) is a small laboratory in the vast empire of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, particularly strong in research of dynamics and pattern recognition, where the newly established biology group excels in mechanics of root anchorage, soil reinforcement with plant roots, as well as development and application of eco-engineering and ground-bioengineering techniques.
The visit had an objective to forge scientific collaboration between UK and China on the stabilizing effect of vegetation on landslide-prone slopes. Since 2001, the Chinese government has implemented a new policy, that all slopes >25° used for agriculture must be reforested within eight years. For such a task to be successful, knowledge on how to plant and manage a slope is required, especially in areas prone to landslides and erosion. The necessity for data and information transfer in the domains of eco-engineering (the use of vegetation for slope protection against natural hazards such as erosion, landslides, etc.) is therefore huge.
During the course of the visit, experiments were carried out on the contribution of root reinforcement to stability of forested slopes investigating the effect of plantation age and density on soil cohesion. For this purpose, uprooting and shear tests on slopes under Cryptomeria and bamboo plantations were set up on field sites in Sechuan province aimed at investigating the root-soil composite behaviour during landslides. Root density, architecture and distribution were measured and classified for calculation of root contribution to soil cohesion. Initial results show that soil permeated with roots is much more resistant to shallow landslides than the soil with no vegetation. Investigations on the anchorage capability of native species and their effect on slope stability were most useful for enlarging the number of species studied and open a possibility of introducing stable species for slope stabilization in landslide-prone areas.
During the stay at the field site, more than 20 landslide sites were visited and characterised in detail (slope, soil, vegetation, management, etc.) aiming at creation of a landslide database and a novel landslide regression model featuring different instability factors. It is hoped that the model can be adapted to different environmental and climatic conditions and become a part of the Slope Decision Support System (SDSS) for ecoengineering.
Promoting the knowledge transfer between UK and Chinese scientific institutions carrying out research on root biomechanics I was invited to give seminars on decision support systems in eco-engineering at LIAMA-CASIA and on the effect of roots on slope stability at the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. The seminars were attended by scientists from the respective institutions, PhD and MSc students as well as members of the Chinese Academy of Forestry and the discussion sessions touched many aspects of plant biomechanics, vegetation management, landscape engineering and plant dynamics modeling.
This visit opened the doors for a better collaboration between the root research groups in Scotland and China. Since the ongoing collaborative research has relevance both for Chinese governmental policy and on the extension of fundamental understanding of root-plant-soil mechanical interactions, it was generally agreed that the aims for the short run are to further expand the network of contacts between UK and China in the next year with partners exploring the possibility for international funding for future research.
Slobodan B. Mickovski
University of Dundee
SEB Annual Meeting, Canterbury
I would like to gratefully thank the SEB and the Company of biologists for the travel grant awarded to me. This grant allowed me to attend the SEB annual meeting at the University of Kent (Canterbury, England) held from the 3rd of April until the 7th of April 2006. Being a PhD student in my last year of PhD fellowship, attending the SEB annual meeting was very important for making contacts with researchers from all over the world working various areas.
Scientific sessions were highly interesting and diversified going from genomics to general animal biology. I particularly enjoyed the sessions “Life with and without oxygen” and “Evolutionary Physiology”. I also had the chance to present some of my work during a talk intituled: “Do brittle star photocytes spark alone?” in the general Animal Biology session. This talk did trigger a lot of exchanges with other scientists who gave me new ideas for further experiments.
Beside the scientific sessions, social events were very well organized on the campus and allow meeting people in a different surrounding. Moreover, it was very interesting to visit the city of Canterbury with its famous cathedral.
So, I would like to once again gratefully acknowledge SEB for giving me this opportunity.
Christine Vanderlinden
UCL, Belgium
Visit to Universidade Estadual Paulista, Brazil
After an 18 month field season at one of The British Antarctic Surveys research stations, I badly needed a change of species and some warm sunshine. I had heard the delights that South America had to offer, and was eager to trial some of the technologies and techniques that I had designed for Antarctic fish onto reptiles. Fortunately for me, Prof. Ted Taylor was carrying out reptile research with Prof. Augusto Abe at the Herpitology facility (Jacarezario), Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil. Over a few long distance emails a short project was prepared, a proposal submitted, and a travel grant from the Company of Biologists obtained.
Arriving at an airport in the tropics after 18 months below zero, was sticky to say the least, and my time in the freezer had not made me any less desirable to the resident mosquitoes. After a hectic bustle through the metropolis mega-city Sao Paulo we soon came to the Jacarezario facility and its menagerie of reptiles. We quickly set to work implanting miniaturised electronic heart rate dataloggers into a number of 1- 2 meter caiman, that were then released into outdoor enclosures simulating their natural habitat.
However, the recording of ECG from the large caiman heart proved to be a lot more difficult than it had been from the very small fish heart, and after a number of attempts we did not have much good data. On a curios whim, Ted Taylor suggested we instead try attaching the loggers to the South American rattlesnake (Crotalus terrificus). His desire to exchange one pretty dangerous reptile to one that is even more hazardous to your health is still unexplained, and must be related to age. However, it proved a good idea, and the serpents produced some nice clean electrocardiograms, and generated some nice data, where the caiman failed. It is not often that snakes save the day, but they did in this case, and we celebrated in typical Brazilian style. Then it was back on the plane to Birmingham, U.K. to write the manuscript, which has been accepted to the society’s journal for publication.
I still want to record heart rates from active caiman, and after modification of the dataloggers, I anticipate trying again. So thanks to the company of Biologists for providing a travel grant to enable me to travel to Brazil and work on these magnificent animals, and successfully transfer technologies and techniques developed for fish, up the evolutionary tree.
Hamish Campbell
University of Birmingham
Development of the enteric nervous system-cells, signals and genes
The conference “Development of the enteric nervous system-cells, signals and genes” in New York, took place at the New York Academy of Medicine during the last days of March, when the first signs of spring were just beginning to emerge in Central Park just across the street. The conference had approximately 120 participants and was organized as oral presentations between 8.30 and 12.30, followed by lunch and poster sessions until 2.30 and another round of oral presentations until 4 o’clock. In the late afternoon there was also a plenary lecture. The meeting was very rewarding and contained a number of very interesting sessions including “migratory pathways and cellular behaviour of enteric neural crest-derived cells”, “screens to identify genes involved in enteric neuron development” and “stem cells in the ENS”. I was also given the opportunity to present my work on “ontogeny of gastrointestinal motility control in larval African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis” in a talk during the last session of the conference. In this presentation I demonstrated the advantages of studying the development of the gut in an animal where the body wall is transparent during the early stages of life. This transparency makes it possible to observe the gastrointestinal tract using a microscope and to record the emerging motility pattern. The control of this developing motility can then be studied using different pharmacological tools.
Participation at this conference also gave me the opportunity to gain knowledge of the very latest discoveries in this field of research, meet several very proficient scientists from other universities and develop a number of new ideas. I would like to thank the SEB and the company of biologists travel fund for granting me funds to attend this conference that so directly related to my PhD project.
Monika Sundqvist
Department of Zoophysiology
Göteborg University
American Society for Neuroscience 2005
The Washington Convention Centre, Washington DC, played host to more than 35,000 participants from every continent of the world for the 35th annual Meeting of the American Society for Neuroscience (SfN) which held 11-18 November, 2005. I want to register my profound indebtedness to the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) for the award of a prestigious CoB travel grant to attend the noble Neuroscience Meeting.
The wealth of knowledge gained and the viability of contacts made really justified my participation. As a final year PhD student interested in knowing where the frontiers of neuroscience research currently are, I looked forward with eagerness and made every effort at the meeting to absorb all I could as well as present my own work. The ambience of the meeting venue, combined with the unusual passion with which each world-class expert presented their authoritative research findings did set the entire conference period aglow. It was therefore not difficult for me to appreciate my own area of interest in relation to the wider context of neuroscience research. Such a brilliant experience could inform the making of better scientists and stronger collaboration ties amongst researchers.
Several symposia ran concurrently while many exhibitions presented latest technologies. Each poster session (2 per day) had literally hundreds of posters on display. My own poster presentation was titled “Oxidative stress and glutamate toxicity in neurons and bone cells: parallels and contrasts,” which highlighted a number of very informative and intriguing similarities and differences in the responses of osteoblasts and neurones to oxidative stress and the excitatory amino acid, glutamate, the rationale for the study being the recent observation that osteoblasts also possess functional glutamate receptors. There were a lot of interesting discussions that ensued from the presentation and these, no doubt, have helped to further widen my research scope as well as grant a glimpse of the viva.
Maybe a few highlights of the impressive Science of the Meeting would be enlightening here. First, it was reported that Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is dose-dependently increased in exercise and those who exercise (shoppers reckoned as highly fortunate!) are therefore more likely to have a healthier old age. The risk for Alzheimer’s Disease is reduced by high physical activity.
In addition, interests in signalling pathways were profound. The MAPK family (ERKs, p38, JNK), NF-κB, CREB and cdk-5, among many others, were extensively explored. Cdk-5 is entirely different (in function) to the other members of the cyclin-dependent family of kinases, and is involved in the regulation of a diverse range of biological processes rather than in cell-cycle regulation. Many other hot topics were discussed, among them the evidence that HIV infection of macrophages activates the kynurenine metabolic pathway.
Amos Akintayo Fatokun
University of Glasgow
3rd International Conference on Legume Genomics and Genetics
In April 2006 I attended the 3rd International Conference on Legume Genomics and Genetics held in Brisbane, Australia. I was able to attend the conference thanks to the generous financial support provided from the Society for Experimental Biology and the Company of Biologists.
This meeting is held every two years and regroups research in the legumes area. The main objective of this conference was “From genes to crops”, i.e. trying how to incorporate the genomics and genetics studies of the different legumes to create new and improved crops.
The conference hosted 230 participants representing 44 different countries with 88 presentations and 142 posters on a wide range of topics concerning research on legumes. The talks varied from the place of legumes in agriculture, their gene structure and evolution, the mechanisms of gene regulation, signalling, and their effect on food and health. A particular session was designated to Medicago truncatula, the plant chosen as model legume.
By attending this conference, it allowed me to present the data from my PhD research and to receive some feedback on my work. It also gave me the opportuniy to meet people in which I have collaborated with but never had the chance to meet them face to face. As I am in the 3rd year of my PhD, the conference permited me to get some really interesting contacts for the future and some ideas for writing my thesis.
However the conference was not all about science; I got the opportunity to visit the lovely town of Brisbane and even see some of the Australian wildlife.
Thank you so much for giving the opportunity to live such an experience.
Melanie Febrer
Teagasc (Ireland)
