GSA Community in the News – Genes to Genomes https://genestogenomes.org A blog from the Genetics Society of America Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:25:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 https://genestogenomes.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/cropped-G2G_favicon-32x32.png GSA Community in the News – Genes to Genomes https://genestogenomes.org 32 32 GSA joins the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM https://genestogenomes.org/gsa-joins-the-societies-consortium-on-sexual-harassment-in-stemm/ Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:25:18 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=36180 The Genetics Society of America (GSA) has joined the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine). The Societies Consortium aims to address sexual and gender-based harassment in science and advance professional and ethical conduct, climate, and culture in STEMM fields. “GSA works to advance the field of genetics, but…]]>

The Genetics Society of America (GSA) has joined the Societies Consortium on Sexual Harassment in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine). The Societies Consortium aims to address sexual and gender-based harassment in science and advance professional and ethical conduct, climate, and culture in STEMM fields.

“GSA works to advance the field of genetics, but science can’t flourish while scientists are held back by sexual and gender harassment,” says GSA Executive Director Tracey DePellegrin. “We are pleased to team up with other societies in confronting this pervasive problem.”

The Societies Consortium will provide research, resources, and guidance to member societies to assist them in addressing sexual harassment in their respective fields, including model policies and procedures for society awards.
Responding to community concerns about harassment at scientific events, GSA has recently updated the code of conduct for GSA conferences. The new code makes it clearer what types of behavior are unacceptable and outlines the consequences of non-compliance. Joining the Societies Consortium will enable GSA to take the next steps in promoting a safe and inclusive climate in our field.

The Societies Consortium was established by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), and the American Geophysical Union (AGU), with EducationCounsel serving as the policy and law consultant. GSA joins a group of more than 70 inaugural members.

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How the fruit fly’s daily rhythms led to big discoveries—and a Nobel Prize https://genestogenomes.org/how-the-fruit-flys-daily-rhythms-led-to-big-discoveries-and-a-nobel-prize/ https://genestogenomes.org/how-the-fruit-flys-daily-rhythms-led-to-big-discoveries-and-a-nobel-prize/#comments Thu, 05 Oct 2017 17:35:43 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=10112 The unassuming fruit fly has paved the way for another big scientific win: on October 2nd, the Nobel Assembly awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms behind circadian rhythms. These biologists have spent their careers studying…]]>

The unassuming fruit fly has paved the way for another big scientific win: on October 2nd, the Nobel Assembly awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young for their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms behind circadian rhythms. These biologists have spent their careers studying how organisms build an internal clock that synchronizes their biology and behavior to the day-night cycle.

Like many important discoveries about how life works, this story begins with one of biology’s most powerful tools: the forward genetic screen. In 1971, Seymour Benzer and Ron Konopka introduced random mutations into fruit flies and screened for mutants with a disrupted circadian rhythm. Benzer and Konopka identified these mutants by monitoring two phenotypes controlled by the circadian clock: what time of day the flies are most active in their enclosure (locomotor activity) and when they emerge from their pupal cases (eclosion). The scientists isolated three mutants with irregular rhythms, identified the single genomic locus associated with all three, and named it period (per).

Over a decade later, Hall and Rosbash, colleagues at Brandeis University, and Young, working at Rockefeller University, independently cloned the period gene. This discovery provided a crucial entry point for Hall, Rosbash, and Young to begin painstakingly putting together the molecular pieces of the circadian rhythm puzzle.

Rosbash and Hall found that levels of the protein product of the period gene (PER) oscillated throughout the day, peaking in the middle of the night. They also noted that per mRNA oscillated as well, though it peaked roughly six hours earlier than PER; this led them to suggest a negative feedback loop wherein the PER protein controls per mRNA expression. As the PER protein began to accumulate, they proposed, it started to put the brakes on its own synthesis.

PER protein was concentrated in the cell nucleus, which fit well with this theory—but PER wasn’t capable of translocating to the nucleus on its own, and its biochemical function was still unknown. It seemed apparent that per gene regulation was directly related to the circadian clock, but the mechanism was still shrouded in mystery.

Meanwhile, a few hours away in Manhattan, Young and his colleagues were identifying new circadian rhythm mutants through a P-element insertion screen; among them was timeless (tim), which mimicked the period phenotype. The tim mutation blocked nuclear localization of the PER protein. Young suggested that the tim protein product (TIM) might interact with PER to help it localize to the nucleus—a suggestion that would turn out to be true.

Subsequent discovery of the circadian genes clock (clk), cycle (cyc), and cryptochrome (cry) by Hall and Rosbash and double-time (dbt) by Young helped some of the last puzzle pieces click into place. By the turn of the century, they had constructed the accepted model for molecular regulation of circadian rhythms.

The simplified version is as follows: the transcription factors CLK and CYC dimerize and promote transcription of both per and tim.

click to enlarge

The PER protein heterodimerizes with TIM and accumulates in the cytoplasm. PER levels reach their peak in the middle of the night. PER-TIM dimers are stable and translocate to the nucleus where they remove CYC-CLK from the promoters, thus halting per and tim expression.

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CRY acts as a photoreceptor: sunlight activates CRY, which leads TIM to be ubiquitinated, causing it to dissociate from PER and to be degraded. Solo PER is phosphorylated by DBT, marking it for degradation. This loss of PER-TIM allows CYC-CLK to resume promoting per and tim expression, starting the cycle over again. Further research has revealed similar intricate biological clocks tick in all animals, including humans.

click to enlarge

With this prize, the Nobel Assembly has again recognized the contribution of research using fruit flies; Hall, Rosbash, and Young join seven previous Drosophila biologists awarded the Nobel Prize. In fact, an impressive number of Nobel Prizes have been awarded for basic science research using model organisms—a powerful approach that the Genetics Society of America advocates for as part of its mission to advance the field of genetics.

We are proud to say that Hall received the GSA Medal in 2003. All three new laureates have been long-time GSA members: Hall until his retirement, Rosbash until 2015, and Young remains one today. These outstanding members of our community show what can be done with hard work, collaboration, creativity, determination, and a pesky little fruit fly friend.


Related GENETICS Articles

Phenotypic and genetic analysis of Clock, a new circadian rhythm mutant in Drosophila melanogaster.
M S Dushay, R J Konopka, D Orr, M L Greenacre, C P Kyriacou, M Rosbash and J C Hall
GENETICS July 1, 1990 vol. 125 no. 3 557-578

Dosage compensation of the period gene in Drosophila melanogaster.
M K Cooper, M J Hamblen-Coyle, X Liu, J E Rutila and J C Hall
GENETICS November 1, 1994 vol. 138 no. 3 721-732

Molecular and Behavioral Analysis of Four period Mutants in Drosophila melanogaster Encompassing Extreme Short, Novel Long, and Unorthodox Arrhythmic Types
Melanie J. Hamblen, Neal E. White, Philip T. J. Emery, Kim Kaiserand Jeffrey C. Hall
GENETICS May 1, 1998 vol. 149 no. 1 165-178

Isolation and Analysis of Six timeless Alleles That Cause Short- or Long-Period Circadian Rhythms in Drosophila
Adrian Rothenfluh, Marla Abodeely, Jeffrey L. Price and Michael W. Young
GENETICS October 1, 2000 vol. 156 no. 2 665-675

Specific Genetic Interference With Behavioral Rhythms in Drosophila by Expression of Inverted Repeats
Sebastian Martinek and Michael W. Young
GENETICS December 1, 2000 vol. 156 no. 4 1717-1725

Identification of Circadian-Clock-Regulated Enhancers and Genes of Drosophila melanogaster by Transposon Mobilization and Luciferase Reporting of Cyclical Gene Expression
Thomas Stempfl, Marion Vogel, Gisela Szabo, Corinna Wülbeck, Jian Liu, Jeffrey C. Hall and Ralf Stanewsky
GENETICS February 1, 2002 vol. 160 no. 2 571-593

Rhythm Defects Caused by Newly Engineered Null Mutations in Drosophila’s cryptochrome Gene
Eva Dolezelova, David Dolezel and Jeffrey C. Hall
GENETICS September 1, 2007 vol. 177 no. 1 329-345; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.107.076513

A Key Temporal Delay in the Circadian Cycle of Drosophila Is Mediated by a Nuclear Localization Signal in the Timeless Protein
Lino Saez, Mary Derasmo, Pablo Meyer, J. Stieglitz, Michael W. Young and T. Schupbach
GENETICS July 1, 2011 vol. 188 no. 3 591-600; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.111.127225

NAT1/DAP5/p97 and Atypical Translational Control in the Drosophila Circadian Oscillator
Sean Bradley, Siddhartha Narayanan and Michael Rosbash
GENETICS November 1, 2012 vol. 192 no. 3 943-957; https://doi.org/10.1534/genetics.112.143248

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Memories of Sue Lindquist https://genestogenomes.org/memories-of-sue-lindquist/ https://genestogenomes.org/memories-of-sue-lindquist/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2016 05:28:21 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=7647 Guest post by Christine Queitsch. Last week when the scientific community lost one of its brightest and most innovative minds, I lost my long-time mentor and the closest thing to a mother since I lost mine. Susan Lindquist had found me in a basement laboratory in the former East Germany, in 1992, shortly after the…]]>

Guest post by Christine Queitsch.

Last week when the scientific community lost one of its brightest and most innovative minds, I lost my long-time mentor and the closest thing to a mother since I lost mine. Susan Lindquist had found me in a basement laboratory in the former East Germany, in 1992, shortly after the Wall fell. I couldn’t speak much English but I could read some, and working in a heat shock lab, I knew her work. When we met, my few words and half-sentences tumbled over each other. But while Sue had a powerful presence, she could speak with anyone. We managed to begin discussing science and never stopped until last week.

Sue understood that I had applied for a Fulbright fellowship to study in the States. Before leaving she took my hands in hers and told me to join her in Chicago should I get funded. I did, and Sue convinced the Fulbright people to change my assignment to the University of Chicago. I still have her letter with the handwritten note discussing child care options for my three-year-old son. Within a week of my arrival, and totally dazed, I knew I wanted to stay. Sue’s lab was a melting pot of scientific concepts, loosely connected by a common interest in protein folding. I had never learnt so many different things in so short a time. As the lab’s first story on yeast prions was about to break, researchers around me were starting to think about testing models for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases in yeast. Cell and organismal biology, genetics, biochemistry, synthetic biology, drug testing, and evolution—all in one lab. An electric atmosphere!

As a European student, I was pleasantly shocked to find no hierarchy in the lab. None. An undergraduate student with a good idea could work on it and coauthor a paper with Sue. There were many women in the lab, including others with children. Sue made it possible for us to be both scientists and mothers. My son sometimes spent afternoons with Sue’s daughters and their nanny while I worked long hours; her husband picked up my son from choir practice together with one of their daughters. Sue had pointed advice for working mothers to maximize their time in the lab without distractions: find a supportive partner (!), live within walking distance to work, find flexible child care, live in small quarters to minimize housework, and don’t be shy to accept help.

Sue’s door was always open; if there was interesting science she wanted to hear it. She saw surprising connections between disparate pieces of evidence or even different projects. She sparkled with creativity and joy when she saw an unexpected result, a trait she never lost. During a recent Seattle visit, I showed her a yeast plate with pilot data for a crazy idea; she looked up, all intense excitement: ”Aww, Christine, you must think of applying this to cancer.” Cancer and yeast? Our meeting time was up, but she got me thinking of the connection (and I still am).

Sue worked intensely on every manuscript—one of my papers took over a year to write. When I gave her my first draft, she commented that “this needs a lot of work” and handed me Strunk & White’s Elements of Style. Indeed. Every word was weighed, concepts considered, once, twice, and again. When I nervously brought her a well-prepared argument that changed the entire story, she heard me out, agreed, and we re-wrote the manuscript yet again. While this may sound tedious, even frustrating (and at times, it was), her attention to detail, her keen logic, and her joy of science shaped me and all of us. She taught me to love English, to appreciate its many nuances and impeccable precision. I remember three of us graduate students with graduations looming, contemplating where to go for postdocs. Where else would we find this intellectual dynamism, this exciting diversity of thought, yet also this insistence on rigor and this personal attention? We had no idea. I solved the dilemma by following Sue to Cambridge to become a Bauer fellow.

Sue was exceedingly warm, a formidable ‘science mother.’ She had my back when my parents fell gravely ill in Germany; she was there for a fellow graduate student when tragedy struck her family. When I whined on the phone earlier this year that I had failed to get a scientific award, she told me to pick myself up, all would be ok, and anyway, it was not as hard as chemotherapy. Sue made it easier to bear bad news and she celebrated good news, sending cards and gifts for new babies, weddings or tenure.

Sue was genuinely funny and fun. She delighted in parties and held many. She loved to dance the tango! And since the Chicago Cubs have just won the World Series, here’s one last story. She took us to baseball games. Imagine the heat and humidity of a Chicago summer afternoon, all of us foreigners not knowing what to make of this strange game. Sue had treated us to beer and brats, so this was great. While she was cheering loudly, most of us had no idea what was going on. She hopped up and down our long row of seats, explaining the rules and spraying us with water so we would survive the heat. It was hilarious. To this day, I take my family to the ballpark. Sadly, it’s never hot enough in Seattle to pull out the spray bottle, but I always bring one just in case.


About the author: Christine Queitsch is an Associate Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington.

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How studying bakers’ yeast unlocked the secrets of our body’s recycling plants https://genestogenomes.org/how-studying-bakers-yeast-unlocked-the-secrets-of-our-bodys-recycling-plants/ https://genestogenomes.org/how-studying-bakers-yeast-unlocked-the-secrets-of-our-bodys-recycling-plants/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:56:34 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=7314 In the late 1980s, Japanese biologist Yoshimori Ohsumi finally got to run a lab of his own and began casting around for a suitable topic to occupy himself and his new grad students. At 43 years old, he did not consider himself much of a scientific success; he was now hoping to corner a niche of biology…]]>

In the late 1980s, Japanese biologist Yoshimori Ohsumi finally got to run a lab of his own and began casting around for a suitable topic to occupy himself and his new grad students. At 43 years old, he did not consider himself much of a scientific success; he was now hoping to corner a niche of biology to call his own and chose a relatively obscure topic in the biology of bakers’ yeast. A little less than three decades later, Ohsumi has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for what his seemingly arcane research ultimately showed about human health, disease, and aging. Ohsumi’s story illustrates the essential role that fundamental research —science performed for the sake of understanding the natural world— plays in medical advances.

His insights revealed how our cells renew themselves. Nearly all the proteins in the human body are constantly destroyed and replaced in a carefully orchestrated garbage disposal and recycling scheme. Without this system, our cells would be quickly overwhelmed with damaged and potentially toxic junk. One of the most vital components of this cellular housekeeping is a process called autophagy, which means, in Greek, “self-eating.”

Before Ohsumi’s work, the importance of autophagy was not widely appreciated, and the mechanics of how a cell could dine on itself were unknown. In the 1950s, biologists discovered a compartment in the cell filled with degradative enzymes, an organelle they named the lysosome (for “digestive body”). The enzymes in the lysosome break down large biological molecules like proteins, carbohydrates, fats, nucleic acids, and membranes into their component parts. Through the microscope, scientists could see bubbles of doubled-up membranes—autophagosomes—delivering debris to the cell’s degradation center. But the details of how this system worked were unclear. How do the autophagosomes know which cell components should be delivered to the lysosome? How do they engulf and transport their targets? What other events in the cell depend on it? What happens when autophagy grinds to a halt?

These questions went unanswered because nobody knew the identity of genes specifically involved in autophagy. This was a roadblock because biologists rely heavily on the tools of genetic analysis when exploring new and unknown processes. Without an idea of the genes involved, they didn’t know what proteins took part in autophagy, or how to unambiguously identify autophagosomes, how to block autophagy, or how to quantify it. So for decades, the molecular details remained mysterious.

In 1988, Ohsumi decided to tackle this problem using the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the familiar fungal cells that help bakers to bake bread, brewers to brew beer, and winemakers to ferment wine. Yeast also frequently help biologists to make knowledge. They are popular in the lab because they are single cells—so they are considerably easier to study than multi-celled organisms—but they still have the complex internal organization common to plants, animals, and fungi. They are also much easier to genetically manipulate than many organisms. In effect, they provide scientists with a fast-growing, inexpensive, powerful, safe, and mostly pleasant-smelling alternative to studying our own cells.

Yeast had rescued Ohsumi from his lab struggles during an often frustrating postdoctoral stint in the United States. Defeated by an initial project on in vitro fertilization in mice, he had switched to studying how yeast cells duplicate their genome during cell division. When he moved back to Tokyo in 1977 to the lab of Yasuhiro Anraku, Ohsumi continued with his new study subject, but worked on transport systems that moved small molecules like amino acids and calcium into and out of the yeast version of the lysosome (idiosyncratically known by yeast biologists as the vacuole—which means “empty space”).

Once he became an associate professor, Ohsumi needed stake out new territory for his own lab. He decided to explore how the vacuole breaks down biomolecules. He had a simple but powerful plan to test whether autophagy occurred in yeast: he examined the vacuoles of yeast deficient in key enzymes that degrade proteins. If autophagic vesicles were being delivered to the vacuole but their degradation was blocked, they should start to build up.

 

When autophagy is induced, a double layer of membranes wraps around cellular debris, eventually sealing up its target inside a closed autophagosome. The autophagosome then fuses with the lysosome/vacuole, releasing a single-membrane bound package that is then degraded by enzymes (left). In vacuole degradation mutants like those used in Ohsumi's lab (right), the autophagosome contents that are delivered to the vacuole are not degraded and accumulate.

When autophagy is induced, a double layer of membranes wraps around cellular debris, eventually sealing up its target inside a closed autophagosome. The autophagosome then fuses with the lysosome/vacuole, releasing a single-membrane bound package that is then degraded by enzymes (left). In vacuole degradation mutants like those used in Ohsumi’s lab (right), the autophagosome contents that are delivered to the vacuole are not degraded and instead accumulate.

 

Knowing that autophagy in animal cells was stimulated by starvation, he grew some of his mutant yeast in growth medium that was nutritionally deficient, and he then examined the cells under a simple light microscope. Within an hour, a few tiny wobbling blobs appeared within the vacuoles. Within three hours, the vacuoles were massively bloated and so jam-packed with the spherical blobs that they could no longer wobble. These structures were the remnants of autophagosomes that had been delivered to the vacuole. In normal cells, they would be rapidly degraded by the vacuolar enzymes, but in the mutants, they just kept arriving at the vacuole and were never broken down. The autophagy traffic was piling up.

Ohsumi and his students had not only shown that yeast cells underwent autophagy, they now had a means for finding the genes that controlled it. Grad student Miki Tsukuda embarked on a mission to find other yeast mutations that affected autophagy. She treated the protein-degradation deficient strain with a chemical that induces random mutations, then screened these mutated strains in a two-step procedure: she first isolated all the strains that had trouble surviving starvation conditions, then she examined their vacuoles under the microscope to hone in on those with autophagy defects. In these effective but labor-intensive experiments, Tsukuda found 15 different genes that disrupted autophagy when mutated. She had uncovered most of the building blocks of autophagy.

Once Ohsumi’s group and others learned the location and sequence of the mutated genes, they had the challenging job of figuring out what job each gene performed in the autophagic pathway. Intriguingly and at first unhelpfully, most of the proteins produced by these genes were new to science, which meant the scientists  could not rely much on studies of other biological pathways as a guide. In spite of this, the elegant mechanisms that drive autophagy were gradually revealed, and robust methods to study the process in other organisms were developed. It soon became clear that autophagy in yeast was very similar to the process in animals, including humans. The field exploded. The year Ohsumi and Tsukuda published their yeast screen, only a couple of dozen research papers were published on autophagy. So far in 2016 alone, nearly 4,000 have been published.

Part of the reason for the field’s growth is the importance of autophagy for health and disease. The ability to recycle nutrients and cellular components helps our cells to survive starvation. Autophagy is important during the development of embryos. It is involved in fighting infection by bacteria and viruses. When autophagy stops functioning, the buildup of toxic proteins can lead to neurodegenerative diseases. When autophagy goes into overdrive, it is associated with cancer formation. With such a key role in maintenance of the cell, many other disease links are being uncovered every year, and there is intense interest in developing drugs that can influence autophagy.

Ohsumi and his students, postdocs, and collaborators have had an outsized influence on this field, not only in identifying the genes that underlie cellular recycling, but in revealing many of the molecular details of how these players function. By seeking out unexplored territory in our understanding of the cells that make bread rise, yeast biologists provided a map for understanding ourselves.

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GSA members elected to the National Academy of Sciences https://genestogenomes.org/gsa-members-elected-to-the-national-academy-of-sciences/ Tue, 03 May 2016 17:04:13 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=6281 Several members of the GSA community were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) at their annual meeting this year. Election to NAS is considered one of the highest honors for scientists in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Congratulations to the following outstanding scientists:   Bonnie Bartel  Ralph and Dorothy…]]>

Several members of the GSA community were elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) at their annual meeting this year. Election to NAS is considered one of the highest honors for scientists in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Congratulations to the following outstanding scientists:

 

Bonnie Bartel 

Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, department of biosciences, Rice University, Houston

GSA Board of Directors, 2011-2013
GENETICS Editor, 2002 -2012 

James J. Bull

Johann Friedrich Miescher Regents Professor, department of integrative biology, The University of Texas, Austin

GENETICS Editor, 2010-2014; Associate Editor, 2015; Author, 2013
G3 Author, 2013

Hongjie Dai

J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood Professor of Chemistry, department of chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

Joseph DeRisi

investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and professor and chair, department of biochemistry and biophysics, University of California, San Francisco

Mary Lou Guerinot

professor, department of biological sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.

Philip Hieter

professor of medical genetics, Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

GSA President, 2012; Vice-President, 2011
GSA Board of Directors, 1995-1997
GENETICS Author, 2013, 2014

Hopi E. Hoekstra

investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, departments of organismic and evolutionary biology and of molecular and cellular biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

GENETICS Author, 2013

Krishna K. Niyogi

investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; faculty scientist, physical biosciences division, DOE-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and professor, department of plant and microbial biology, University of California, Berkeley

Amita Sehgal

investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

TAGC Keynote Speaker, 2016

Geraldine Seydoux

investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and professor, department of molecular biology and genetics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore

GSA Board of Directors, 2005-2007
G3 Author, 2013; GENETICS Author, 2014

 

NAS members are elected by current active members through a selective process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of scientific research. The newly elected members raise NAS’s total active membership to 2,291 and the number of international members to 465.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in science by election to membership, and collaborates with the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council to provide science, technology, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations. Membership in the NAS is widely regarded as a mark of excellence in scientific research.

Additional Information:

 

 

 

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GSA members elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences https://genestogenomes.org/gsa-members-elected-to-american-academy-of-arts-sciences/ Thu, 28 Apr 2016 14:48:28 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=6106 Several members of the GSA community have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Founded in 1780, the Academy is one of the country’s oldest learned societies, whose early members include John Hancock, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin.   Andrew G. Clark, PhD Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Population Genetics Nancy and…]]>

American Academy of Arts & SciencesSeveral members of the GSA community have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Founded in 1780, the Academy is one of the country’s oldest learned societies, whose early members include John Hancock, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin.

 

AndyClark-200x247pix_1 Andrew G. Clark, PhD
Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Population Genetics
Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator
Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics
Cornell University

GSA Board of Directors, 2002–2004

SteveJacobsen Steven E. Jacobsen, PhD
HHMI Investigator
Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
University of California, Los Angeles
Michael Lichten Michael J. Lichten, PhD
Deputy Chief, Laboratory of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
Joachim Messing, PhD
Director, Waksman Institute of Microbiology
University Professor of Molecular Biology
Selman A. Waksman Chair in Molecular Genetics
Rutgers University
Sara Otto Sarah P. Otto, PhD
Professor of Zoology
Director, Centre for Biodiversity Research
University of British Columbia
Anne_Villeneuve 300 x 300 Anne M. Villeneuve, PhD
Professor of Genetics and Developmental Biology
Stanford University School of Medicine

GSA Secretary, 2013–2015

 

The Academy’s 236th class of new members includes 213 individuals representing a broad cross-section of scholars, scientists, writers, artists, business leaders, philanthropists, and more.

 

Additional Information:

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The beauty of C. elegans mitosis art helps policymakers see NSF impacts https://genestogenomes.org/c-elegans-cell-division-art-helps-policymakers-see-nsf/ https://genestogenomes.org/c-elegans-cell-division-art-helps-policymakers-see-nsf/#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2016 12:30:58 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=6153 Last night, a milieu of scientists, Congressional staffers, members of Congress, and representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) filled the banquet room of the Rayburn House Office Building to show how investments in STEM research and education are fueling American innovation. Among those scientists was GSA member Ahna Skop, an Associate Professor of Genetics and…]]>
Ahna Skop explains why she uses C.elegans to study cell division to AAAS CEO Rush Holt

Ahna Skop explains why she uses C. elegans to study cell division to Rush Holt, current CEO of AAAS and a former Congressman from New Jersey.

Last night, a milieu of scientists, Congressional staffers, members of Congress, and representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) filled the banquet room of the Rayburn House Office Building to show how investments in STEM research and education are fueling American innovation. Among those scientists was GSA member Ahna Skop, an Associate Professor of Genetics and Life Sciences Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Skop arrived to the poster session after having spent the day on Capitol Hill sharing her enthusiasm for conducting model organism research in C. elegans, understanding cell division, increasing diversity in science, and using the beauty of microscopy to engage the public in her research on cell division.

skop

Dr. Skop signs-in at Senator Ron Johnson’s office.

“It’s essential that NSF remain a major part of the funding discussion for researchers who are also passionate about teaching and outreach,” she told a staffer in Rep. Mark Pocan’s (D-WI-02) office. “NSF has a mandate for education that Congress must support.”  Skop also met with the offices of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who recently sponsored the Next Generation Researchers Act, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), a fiscal conservative who has a growing interest in the life sciences. Policymakers were fascinated with Skop’s microscopy images of mitosis, which she used as a reminder that support for fundamental research enabled the development of visualization tools like green fluorescent protein.

The poster session was organized by the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), a consortium of 140 organizations united by a concern for the future vitality of the national science, mathematics and engineering enterprise. GSA, a member of CNSF, works in concert with these organizations to increase the national investment in the fundamental research and education initiatives supported by the National Science Foundation. Among the senior officials and Members of Congress visiting the 40 posters representing NSF investments across the country were NSF Director France Córdova, former Congressman and CEO of AAAS Rush Holt, and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA-09).

skop_baldwin

Dr. Skop on her way in to Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office

The push to improve awareness of NSF’s contributions and increase its funding is critical as the agency’s budget has remained relatively flat in the past few years. The President’s budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2017 asks for $7.964 billion for NSF, of which $400 million is mandatory funding that Congress is unlikely to accept. This was demonstrated earlier this month when the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Commerce, Justice, Science spending bill which allotted $7.51 billion to NSF, ignoring the mandatory funding proposal and leaving the agency with a meager $46 million increase over FY 2016.

Feeling the impact of repeatedly low budget increases, the Biological Sciences Directorate (BIO) at NSF placed the Collections in Support of Biological Sciences and Instrument Development for Biological Research programs on hiatus for fiscal year 2017, pending the results of an evaluation to assess their “impact and scalability.” Notably, this decision was rooted in the need to prioritize other initiatives in the BIO budget, suggesting that an infusion of funding could allow support for emerging programs without impacting existing ones. During her visits with policymakers, Skop mentioned these programs explicitly, citing the C. elegans stock centers as an invaluable resource for her research that Congress should be proud to support.

You can share your  voice in support of the National Science Foundation too.  Write your members of Congress today to tell them why NSF funding is important for your research.


To learn more about the CNSF exhibition, visit www.cnsf.org and #SeeNSF on twitter.

 

 

 

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GSA members provide early exposure to research in the St. Louis community https://genestogenomes.org/gsa-members-provide-early-exposure-to-research-in-the-st-louis-community/ Mon, 04 Apr 2016 14:10:13 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=5797 Last year, GSA launched a new initiative to support our student and postdoc members who have ideas for local workshops on topics related to genetics research. The Advocating Translational Genetics/Genomics Conference in St. Louis (ATGC-STL) held at Harris Stowe State University (HSSU) was one of the first Trainee Organized Symposia to be funded through this…]]>
ATGC-STL Co-chairs with plenary speakers. Pictured: (right to left) Joseph Bradley, Chelsea Pretz, Dr. Sally Elgin (keynote speaker), Dr. Dwaun J. Warmack (HSSU President), Dr. Ann Podleski (Honoree Speaker), Davinelle Daniels

ATGC-STL Co-chairs with plenary speakers. Pictured: (right to left) Joseph Bradley, Chelsea Pretz, Dr. Sally Elgin (keynote speaker), Dr. Dwaun J. Warmack (HSSU President), Dr. Ann Podleski (Honoree Speaker), Davinelle Daniels

Last year, GSA launched a new initiative to support our student and postdoc members who have ideas for local workshops on topics related to genetics research. The Advocating Translational Genetics/Genomics Conference in St. Louis (ATGC-STL) held at Harris Stowe State University (HSSU) was one of the first Trainee Organized Symposia to be funded through this mechanism. The organizers, Joseph Bradley, Davinelle Daniels, and Chelsea Pretz wanted to create an opportunity to expose young, underrepresented groups to a wide range of genetics scholars stating,  “We chose to host ATGC-STL at HSSU, a historically black university because these institutions are crucial to diversity in the science community.”

The event engaged over 100 attendees from a broad range of backgrounds in a number of seminars and a poster session. Scholars had a chance to present their research, interact with university faculty and peers, and obtain information on undergraduate and graduate level opportunities in genetics research. One of the most notable moments of the symposium was when two high school students presented with experienced, professional researchers during the “Genetic Seminar Presentation” session. These students, who had summer research opportunities in which they were paired with a research lab at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL) through the Young Scientist Program, shared their research experience with their peers and highlighted the possibilities of early exposure to research outside of the classroom.  Conference participants raved about the academic-specific workshops and mentor-mentee pairing, which ensured that attendees were able to make meaningful connections that lasted beyond the event.

“What really made this conference such a success was the support shown by Harris-Stowe State University. While this was truly a student-focused and student-led endeavor, the Harris-Stowe faculty and staff were extremely supportive.  The conference, like most successful STEM projects, was truly a collaborative effort. In the coming years, we hope this conference continues to be a pipeline for many more aspiring geneticists.” – ATGC-STL  Organizers


The deadline for the next round of proposals for Trainee Organized Symposia will be July 10, 2016. Learn more about the review criteria here.

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Behind the podium: NIH Director Francis Collins, Keynote Speaker at TAGC https://genestogenomes.org/behind-the-podium-nih-director-francis-collins-keynote-speaker-at-tagc/ Thu, 31 Mar 2016 06:00:11 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=5780 In preparation for The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), set to take place in Orlando this July, Genes to Genomes is getting the inside scoop from many of the outstanding keynote speakers in our “Behind the Podium” series. Here, GSA member Sarah Neuman interviews National Institutes of Health Director, Francis Collins.     As the former…]]>

In preparation for The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC), set to take place in Orlando this July, Genes to Genomes is getting the inside scoop from many of the outstanding keynote speakers in our “Behind the Podium” series. Here, GSA member Sarah Neuman interviews National Institutes of Health Director, Francis Collins.


 

 

Photo Credit: Bill Branson

Photo Credit: Bill Branson

As the former leader of the Human Genome Project and the current Director of NIH, Dr. Francis Collins has led an illustrious and successful scientific career. Attendees of The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) will  be treated to a robust discussion of current scientific advancements in the field of genetics and the importance of basic research during his keynote address at the meeting. Because his scientific roots are in genetics, Collins is particularly excited to be a part of TAGC and to interact with the genetics community at large.

One might wonder what makes a scientist like Dr. Collins “tick.” Trained as both a physician and a geneticist, Dr. Collins cites his clinical interactions with patients as a motivating force for his research on the genetic basis of disease. Work done by Collins and colleagues was instrumental in identifying the genes responsible for several diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, and progeria, a rare premature aging disorder. Collins regards this connection between basic science research and clinical treatment as a special privilege he was granted during his career. Collins’ expertise in medical genetic research led to his appointment as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, which oversaw the Human Genome Project. When asked what career accomplishment he has found most rewarding, Dr. Collins answered without hesitation: “[I was honored to have] the privilege of leading the Human Genome Project, to read out all those letters of the human DNA instruction book, as well as all the other model organisms that were part of the project.”

When it comes to the future of biomedical research, Collins is enthusiastic about the role of genetics and model organisms. He thinks that we will depend on model organism research more than ever as we continue to unravel the mysteries of the human body and uncover the causes of disease.  Collins notes that many experiments simply cannot be carried out in humans due to ethical concerns or the complexity of the human body. Throughout the decades, there have been many fundamental discoveries made in model organisms that were then applied to humans and Dr. Collins predicts that the field will continue to depend on these systems more and more to discover how life works and to understand what can go wrong in disease.

Dr. Collins also has some sage advice for early-career scientists. “This is the best time in history to get involved in science, particularly life science, but one should aim to try to answer important questions and not just obvious ones. And, you should count on doing this in a fashion where you ally yourselves with other talented people who have different expertise, because much of the excitement seems to happen at the interface between disciplines. This is not a time to be narrow.” Conferences like TAGC and organizations like GSA that unite researchers from diverse model systems provide an ideal platform to promote interdisciplinary collaborations that will help move science forward.

For anyone who is not yet sure if they want to attend TAGC, perhaps Dr. Collins’ “elevator pitch” will persuade you:

“Genetics has become the way in which we unravel the mysteries of life across the entire spectrum of animals, plants, and bacteria, and if you want to be doing something interesting in science right now, you are probably going to be using the tools of genetics to solve mysteries, and that should be on full display at this meeting.”


Sara_Neuman

About the author: Sarah Neuman is a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She uses forward genetics to study the role of endocrine signaling mechanisms in the control of systemic growth during Drosophila development.

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GSA supports symposia organized by student and postdoc members https://genestogenomes.org/early-career-members-plan-workshops-to-explore-career-options-and-new-initiatives-in-genetics/ Tue, 22 Mar 2016 14:43:13 +0000 https://genestogenomes.org/?p=5590 The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is pleased to support a new round of GSA Trainee-Organized Symposia, which are organized by student and postdoctoral members of the Society. These outstanding events will receive up to $2,000 each in funding to cover direct meeting costs, such as speaker travel, facility rental, and promotional supplies.

The goal of the GSA Trainee-Organized Symposia program, which was launched in 2015, is to advance knowledge, encourage exchange, foster new connections and collaborations, and further the mission of the Society by facilitating the efforts of early career members to convene events relevant to the Society’s mission. Proposed workshops were evaluated by GSA’s Mentoring and Professional Development Committee based on their relevance to the GSA mission, the need for and the uniqueness of the event, the benefit to early career geneticists, and the availability of other relevant support.

“It is exciting to support our student and postdoc members in their efforts to organize local and regional events that will help serve the genetics community,” said Adam P. Fagen, PhD, GSA’s Executive Director. “GSA will continue to promote opportunities for our trainee members to assume leadership roles in the Society and in our field.” The details of newly funded GSA Trainee-Organized Symposia and their organizing committees are below.


Postdoctoral GSA members Brook Moyers, Chris Schell, and Kathryn Turner are organizing “Genomics of Adaptation to Human Contexts,” which will be held August 4-6, 2016, at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. This symposium will highlight exemplary research that uses large genomic datasets to investigate ecology and evolution in the era of human impact on the Earth’s ecosystems. The pervasive and multifaceted effect humans have on the environment and species around us is becoming the prevalent story of biology in the 21st century. Humans apply selective pressures in every direction, and these pressures can have dramatic effects under relatively short, contemporary evolutionary timescales. Scientists in traditionally disjunct fields from urban ecology to agriculture use the same genetics tools to ask related questions: How are species adapting to human contexts? What are the effects of human-imposed selection pressures? What sources of diversity fuel rapid evolution? These questions are increasingly relevant as more species are affected by human activities. Whether the species of interest is domesticated, invasive, or adapting to human alterations to its habitat, genomic datasets hold the key for understanding rapid evolutionary shifts. Through this event, early career researchers in many fields will benefit from understanding the parallel and potentially complementary approaches and tools used in other fields to answer very similar questions using large genomic datasets. Because geneticists must gain key bioinformatic and programming skills to work with such datasets, the symposium will be paired with a Software Carpentry workshop to train graduate student and postdoctoral geneticists in essential programmatic tools.

 

moyers Schell Turner

(from left to right: Brook Moyers, Chris Schell, Kathryn Turner)


The 2016 “Scientists Exploring Non-Academic Career Choices (SEARCH) Symposium,” hosted by the University of Kansas on April 2, 2016, in Lawrence, Kansas, is a collaborative effort between the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and the Molecular Biosciences (MB) Graduate Student Organizations. The SEARCH effort was initiated by GSA graduate student members Alexandra Erwin, Haifa Alhadyian, Kaila Colyott, and Kara Hinshaw; they have since been joined by GSA graduate student members Boryana Koseva, Lucas Hemmer, Mahekta Gujar, and Vitoria Paolillo, as well as several other students in related fields (Andrew Mongue, Desiree Harpel, and Elizabeth Chang).

This collaboration was born from a common desire of students in both departments to learn about the career opportunities for PhDs outside of traditional academia. The SEARCH Symposium has three goals: (1) to inform trainees of the diversity of science careers by hosting scientists in occupations including policy, entrepreneurship, industry, science writing, data science, government, administration, and law; (2) prepare trainees for non-academic careers by discussing professional skills that students can develop while in graduate school or during postdoctoral training; and (3) to foster connections between trainees and local scientists through a career fair featuring companies seeking job applicants with advanced-degree. Over a dozen scientists will speak as part of an all-day symposium at no charge to the participants. There will also be opportunities for graduate students and postdocs to share professional development experiences through presentations. This event is expected to benefit an overflow crowd including undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs from the University of Kansas, University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, and other universities in the area. The SEARCH organizers hope that the interest generated by this pilot symposium encourages the development of additional graduate student career resources for biology graduate students at the University of Kansas and other universities in the area. ​

SEARCH

Top, left to right: Alexandra Erwin, Boryana Koseva, and Haifa Alhadyian

Bottom, left to right: Kaila Colyott, Kara Hinshaw, and Tori Paolillo

Center: the SEARCH Symposium Organizers (not pictured: Mahekta Gujar or Andrew Mongue); top row: Boryana Koseva, Vitoria Paolillo, Lucas Hemmer; middle row: Alexandra Erwin, Kara Hinshaw, Elizabeth Chang; bottom row: Haifa Alhadyian, Kaila Colyott, Desiree Harpel


New Investigations into Ribosomal DNA,” organized by GSA postdoctoral members Elizabeth Kwan and Elizabeth Morton, will be hosted by the University of Washington, Seattle, in August or September of 2016. This symposium will provide a needed platform for the presentation and discussion of cutting-edge research on a long undervalued cellular feature: ribosomal DNA. Once thought an uninteresting housekeeping gene, ribosomal DNA (rDNA) has recently been implicated in an astonishing array of biological processes such as lifespan, regulation of gene expression, and genome replication. rDNA encodes the primary RNA components of ribosomes, the protein factories of every living cell, and each cell dedicates a significant percentage of its genome to rDNA sequences. Investigations into the effects of rDNA have been made possible by the fact that rDNA exists in high copy number in numerous model organisms, including yeast, worms, and flies. Several labs in the greater Seattle area are engaged in research on the different roles of rDNA, and this symposium will showcase the breadth of this research. This new venue will provide the burgeoning rDNA research community with an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas on the future of rDNA research.

Kwan Morton

left to right: Elizabeth Kwan and Elizabeth Morton)

 

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