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Development,
2009]
A diverse group of developmental biologists who study cell polarity gathered in late March 2009 at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, for a symposium entitled ;Shape and Polarity''. The organizers, Masatoshi Takeichi, Fumio Matsuzaki, Hitoshi Sawa [RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB), Kobe, Japan] and Carl-Philipp Heisenberg (Max Planck Institute, Dresden, Germany), put together an engaging program that highlighted recent progress towards understanding the mechanisms of cell polarization during development, and the functions of cell polarity in shaping development.
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EMBO Rep,
2012]
The Cold Spring Harbour Asia conference on 'Assembly, Plasticity, Dysfunction and Repair of Neural Circuits' took place in Suzhou, China, in October 2011. Developmental, cell, molecular and systems neuroscientists convened to discuss the establishment, function and plasticity of neural circuits in diverse organisms.
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EMBO Rep,
2012]
The ESF-EMBO meeting on 'Cell Polarity and Membrane Traffic' took place in Poland in April 2012. It brought together scientists from two once separate fields and highlighted their emerging interdependence. The wealth of scientific insights and discoveries presented laid a path for future research.
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Science,
1996]
The one-cell animal embryo, or zygote, faces a daunting engineering task: implementing the architectural plans inscribed in its DNS for building a complex, multicelled body. So, like any sensible construction supervisor, the zygote swiftly divides the project into manageable chunks, assigning some of its progeny to build only gut, for example, and other to make only muscle or skin. Just how each early embryonic cell gets its orders is understood only for the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster-an achievement that helped win 1995's Nobel Prize in medicine for three developmental biologists. Now, however, the communication lines governing embryonic development are emerging in another animal beloved of developmental researchers: the tiny worm known as Caenorhabditis elegans.
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IDrugs,
2010]
CHI''s Seventh Annual Conference on High-Content Analysis (HCA), held in San Francisco, incorporated topics covering new developments in the field of HCA, including hardware and software updates, new biological models for HCA and pathway analysis. This conference report highlights selected presentations on the use of HCA for the characterization of stem cells, cell-colony analysis, the validation of disease models and the identification of antiparasitic compounds.
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New Biol,
1991]
The biennial meeting on the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, which has been held at Cold Spring Harbor on six previous occasions, this year grew too big for the motels of Long Island and moved westward to Madison, where over 500 participants spent 4 packed days discussing recent discoveries and future prospects. Gone are the days when research on this tiny worm seemed like a cottage industry, pursued only by a small group of devotees. However, the holistic approach to the nematode still prevails, as demonstrated by the absence of parallel sessions at the meeting. Genomics, genetics, neurobiology, cell biology, biochemistry, and development remain inextricably interwoven for most of the scientists studying C. elegans. Appropriately enough, biological interactions proved to be a leitmotiv of the 1991 meeting.
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Mech Ageing Dev,
2007]
Nearly 20 years ago, researchers discovered that lifespan can be extended by single-gene mutations in the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Further studies revealed that the mechanisms governing aging in the smallest organisms have been evolutionarily conserved and may operate in human beings. Since then, the field of biogerontology has expanded considerably, learning from - and contributing to - such disparate fields as cell signaling, metabolism, endocrinology, and a wide range of human diseases including cancer. To date, newly discovered connections and novel interdisciplinary approaches gradually unify what once seemed unrelated observations between seemingly disparate research areas. While this unification is far from complete, several overlapping themes have clearly emerged. At the 95th International Titisee Conference, devoted to "The Molecular Basis of Aging," 60 of the world''s pre-eminent biogerontologists shared their most recent findings in the biology of aging, and discussed interdisciplinary connections between diverse fields.
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Invert Neurosci,
2013]
Some of the finest minds in the field of Caenorhabditis elegans neurobiology were brought together from 14 June to 17 June 2012 in the small, quaint and picturesque German city of Heidelberg for the biannual C. elegans neurobiology conference. Held at the EMBL Advanced Training Centre and wonderfully organised by Diah Yulianti, Jean-Louis Bessereau, Gert Jansen and William Schafer, the meeting contained 62 verbal presentations and hundreds of posters that were displayed around the double-helical walkways that looped throughout the conference centre. Presentations on recent advances in microfluidics, cell ablation and targeted gene expression exemplified the strengths of C. elegans as a model organism, with these advances allowing detailed high-throughput analysis and study. Interesting behaviours that were previously poorly characterised were widely discussed, as were the advantages of C. elegans as a model for neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration and the investigation of neuropeptide function. The examples discussed in this meeting report seek to illustrate the breadth and depth of presentations given on these recurring topics.
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RNA Biol,
2010]
Since the discovery of the first microRNA (miRNA) family member
lin-4 in Caenorhabditis elegans by Lee et al. and RNA interference (RNAi) by Andrew Fire and his colleagues in the 1990s, the new field of regulatory non-coding RNAs has enormously gained momentum and importance. Small regulatory RNAs comprise small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), miRNAs and Piwi-associated small RNAs (piRNAs). Generated from double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs), siRNAs trigger sequence-specific mRNA decay also known as RNA interference (RNAi). miRNAs in association with Argonaute (AGO ) and GW182 proteins, forming the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), mediate fine tuning of gene expression and are involved in various biological key processes. An estimate of 500-1,000 miRNA genes exist in vertebrates and plants and about 100 in invertebrates. Each miRNA is predicted to target hundreds of mRNAs thus influencing key regulatory mechanisms of the cell. Consequently, deregulated miRNA expression has been suggested to contribute to the initiation and progression of human cancer and other diseases. piRNAs associated with Piwi proteins protect the animal germline from mobile genetic elements, thereby acting as a small RNA-based immune system.
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J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci,
2015]
In June 2013, a workshop was convened in San Francisco to explore, in depth, the role of the Forkhead transcription factor FOXO3 (and related FOXOs) in development, aging, and, in particular, exceptional longevity. The presentations covered results derived from model systems, computational analysis and bioinformatics, and genomics and genome-wide association studies of a number of cohorts. Although the data collectively strongly reinforce FOXO3 and the FOXO/FOXO3 pathway as very important determinants in aging and life span, much of the detail of how the latter is achieved still remains unknown, in part, because of the very large number of genes (~2,200 in Caenorhabditis elegans) the transcription factor is involved in helping regulate. Particularly challenging at the present time is understanding the association of apparently nonfunctional specific variants (single nucleotide polymorphisms) of FOXO3 and exceptional longevity in humans, a finding replicated in a number of studies. Nonetheless, as summarized in this report, valuable information and insights were presented at the workshop on the transcription factor including but not limited to its role in determining longevity in C elegans and Drosophila (in flies, eg, an important interaction in aging occurs between dFOXO and the transforming growth factor-/activin pathway), stem cell function and aging (notably in hematopoiesis), downstream regulatory activity (eg, by binding near sites of RNAse occupancy and altering chromatin structure), and as a potential target for the development a healthy aging drug (in this example, using compounds developed and screened to effect FOXO function in cancer cells).