Kabra M, Robie AA, Rivera-Alba M, Branson S, Branson K. JAABA: interactive machine learning for automatic annotation of animal behavior. Nat Methods. 2013 Jan;10(1):64-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2281. Epub 2012 Dec 2. PubMed PMID: 23202433.
Koch KW. The guanylate cyclase signaling system in zebrafish photoreceptors. FEBS Lett. 2013 May 6. doi:pii: S0014-5793(13)00318-9. 10.1016/j.febslet.2013.04.023. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23660405.
Genetics
Potok ME, Nix DA, Parnell TJ, Cairns BR. Reprogramming the maternal zebrafish genome after fertilization to match the paternal methylation pattern. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):759-72. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.030. PubMed PMID: 23663776.
Jiang L, Zhang J, Wang JJ, Wang L, Zhang L, Li G, Yang X, Ma X, Sun X, Cai J, Zhang J, Huang X, Yu M, Wang X, Liu F, Wu CI, He C, Zhang B, Ci W, Liu J. Sperm, but not oocyte, DNA methylome is inherited by zebrafish early embryos. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):773-84. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.041. PubMed PMID: 23663777.
Commentary for #1 & 2: Hackett JA, Surani MA. Beyond DNA: Programming and Inheritance of Parental Methylomes. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):737-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.044. PubMed PMID: 23663772.
Wang H, Yang H, Shivalila CS, Dawlaty MM, Cheng AW, Zhang F, Jaenisch R. One-Step Generation of Mice Carrying Mutations in Multiple Genes by CRISPR/Cas-Mediated Genome Engineering. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):910-8. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.025. Epub 2013 May 2. PubMed PMID: 23643243.
Qi LS, Larson MH, Gilbert LA, Doudna JA, Weissman JS, Arkin AP, Lim WA. Repurposing CRISPR as an RNA-guided platform for sequence-specific control of gene expression. Cell. 2013 Feb 28;152(5):1173-83. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.02.022. PubMed PMID: 23452860.
Gerety SS, Breau MA, Sasai N, Xu Q, Briscoe J, Wilkinson DG. An inducible transgene expression system for zebrafish and chick. Development. 2013 May;140(10):2235-43. doi: 10.1242/dev.091520. PubMed PMID: 23633515.
Ibarra-Laclette E, Lyons E, Hernández-Guzmán G, Pérez-Torres CA, Carretero-Paulet L, Chang TH, Lan T, Welch AJ, Juárez MJ, Simpson J, Fernández-Cortés A, Arteaga-Vázquez M, Góngora-Castillo E, Acevedo-Hernández G, Schuster SC, Himmelbauer H, Minoche AE, Xu S, Lynch M, Oropeza-Aburto A, Cervantes-Pérez SA, de Jesús Ortega-Estrada M, Cervantes-Luevano JI, Michael TP, Mockler T, Bryant D, Herrera-Estrella A, Albert VA, Herrera-Estrella L. Architecture and evolution of a minute plant genome. Nature. 2013 May 12. doi: 10.1038/nature12132. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23665961.
Development
Yi P, Park JS, Melton DA. Betatrophin: A Hormone that Controls Pancreatic β Cell Proliferation. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):747-58. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.008. Epub 2013 Apr 25. PubMed PMID: 23623304.
Mongera A, Nüsslein-Volhard C. Scales of fish arise from mesoderm. Curr Biol. 2013 May 6;23(9):R338-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.056. PubMed PMID: 23660349.
Systems Biology
Fisher JK, Bourniquel A, Witz G, Weiner B, Prentiss M, Kleckner N. Four-Dimensional Imaging of E. coli Nucleoid Organization and Dynamics in Living Cells. Cell. 2013 May 9;153(4):882-95. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.006. Epub 2013 Apr 25. PubMed PMID: 23623305.
Picture opportunity with the hosts of ARVO CUHK-JSIEC Research Networking Evening From Left to Right: Yuk Fai Leung (Purdue), Prof. Mingzhi Zhang (Joint Shantou International Eye Center), and Prof. Calvin Pang (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
We have got an opportunity to share the vision on using zebrafish for screening eye drugs in our JSIEC-Purdue Joint Laboratory with many distinguished guests from all over the world, including Dr. Mansoor Sarfarazi (U Conn), Dr. G Kumaramanickavel (Narayana Nethralaya), Dr. John Prakash (Associate Director, NEI), Dr. Martine Jager (Former ARVO president, Leiden University), Dr. Motokazu Tsujikawa (Osaka), Dr.Vincent Raymond (U Laval) , Dr. Kanxing Zhao (Zhongshan) and many more.
Fai and Sylvia with Dr. Mingzhi Zhang (JSIEC), Dr. Haoyu Chen (JSIEC), Dr. John Prakash (NEI) and Mrs. Prakash.
Horikawa T, Tamaki M, Miyawaki Y, Kamitani Y. Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep. Science. 2013 Apr 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23558170.
Chung K, Wallace J, Kim SY, Kalyanasundaram S, Andalman AS, Davidson TJ, Mirzabekov JJ, Zalocusky KA, Mattis J, Denisin AK, Pak S, Bernstein H, Ramakrishnan C, Grosenick L, Gradinaru V, Deisseroth K. Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature. 2013 Apr 10. doi: 10.1038/nature12107. [Epub ahead of print]
Howe K, et al. The zebrafish reference genome sequence and its relationship to the human genome. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12111. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594743.
Schier AF. Genomics: Zebrafish earns its stripes. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12094. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594741.
Kettleborough RN, Busch-Nentwich EM, Harvey SA, Dooley CM, de Bruijn E, van Eeden F, Sealy I, White RJ, Herd C, Nijman IJ, Fényes F, Mehroke S, Scahill C, Gibbons R, Wali N, Carruthers S, Hall A, Yen J, Cuppen E, Stemple DL. A
systematic genome-wide analysis of zebrafish protein-coding gene function. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature11992. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594742.
I visited Ho Yu College in Hong Kong last month. A good mentor Dr. William Mak has been running a great biotechnology education program for the primary and secondary school students, as well as the public there. See an old post about their outreach program in which they fit a whole research lab into custom-built bus! I shared the research program of our laboratory at Purdue University on using zebrafish to screen drugs for vision benefit.
I outlined our approach on using simple visual behaviour assays to identify positive effects of drugs. I specifically emphasized on the potential to analyze many of traditional Chinese medicines; the treasure that we have been consuming for generations. Some of these possibilities are outlined in our recent review paper:
Zhang LY, Chong L, Cho J, Liao PC, Shen F, Leung YF. Drug Screening to Treat Early-Onset Eye Diseases: Can Zebrafish Expedite the Discovery? Asia-Pac J Ophthalmol 2012; 1:374-383. [Full text][pdf]
The interaction with the students was fantastic. They were very imaginative and eager to ask questions all the time! Their enthusiasm was infectious and is the driving force of scientific progress. That also reminded me of the problem of our education in stifling creativity when students are “educated”, which I wrote in a separate post recently.
This is truly an enjoyable experience and I look forward to visiting them again soon!
Zu Y, Tong X, Wang Z, Liu D, Pan R, Li Z, Hu Y, Luo Z, Huang P, Wu Q, Zhu Z, Zhang B, Lin S. TALEN-mediated precise genome modification by homologous recombination in zebrafish. Nat Methods. 2013 Feb 24. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2374. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23435258.
Chang N, Sun C, Gao L, Zhu D, Xu X, Zhu X, Xiong JW, Xi JJ. Genome editing with RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease in Zebrafish embryos. Cell Res. 2013 Apr;23(4):465-72. doi: 10.1038/cr.2013.45. Epub 2013 Mar 26. PubMed PMID: 23528705; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3616424.
Retinal development
Chiodini F, Matter-Sadzinski L, Rodrigues T, Skowronska-Krawczyk D, Brodier L, Schaad O, Bauer C, Ballivet M, Matter JM. A Positive Feedback Loop between ATOH7 and a Notch Effector Regulates Cell-Cycle Progression and Neurogenesis in the Retina. Cell Rep. 2013 Mar 28;3(3):796-807. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.01.035. Epub 2013 Feb 21. PubMed PMID: 23434507.
Blackiston DJ, Levin M. Ectopic eyes outside the head in Xenopus tadpoles provide sensory data for light-mediated learning. J Exp Biol. 2013 Mar 15;216(Pt 6):1031-40. doi: 10.1242/jeb.074963. PubMed PMID: 23447666.
Recently I have got the privilege to share my research work with secondary school students. During the talk, it was obvious to me that the younger the students were, the more imaginative the questions that they could come up with and the more fearless they were in asking questions. One reason is that the eduction has often encouraged students to give the “right answer”; otherwise, they will not get good grades. So, when the students are growing up, they quickly learn how to shut up and only seek ways to give the “right answer”. That reminds me of several great talks by Sir Ken Robinson on education, including a TED talk on how schools kill creativity that I shared here before, and an RSA talk on Changing Education Paradigms. The latter is a very thought-provoking talk, and the RSA has made a nicely animated version of the key part:
Just come across these two great TED talks by Ben Goldacre that talks about how the information in scientific literature can be distorted and why not all information that is essential for medical advance can be found in the literature. It is really a flaw in the research system and human nature that positive and new findings will (preferentially) be rewarded. This has suppressed the appearance of negative findings and solid repeats that would validate ideas that would benefit human kinds. The reason behind this is partially because the scientists who conducted these kinds of studies will often be labeled non-productive (productive = getting positive findings) and non-innovative. Is there a solution to that?
Muto A, Ohkura M, Abe G, Nakai J, Kawakami K. Real-Time Visualization of Neuronal Activity during Perception. Curr Biol. 2013 Jan 29. doi:pii: S0960-9822(13)00002-X. 10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.040. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23375894.
Hwang WY, Fu Y, Reyon D, Maeder ML, Tsai SQ, Sander JD, Peterson RT, Yeh JR, Joung JK. Efficient genome editing in zebrafish using a CRISPR-Cas system. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Jan 29. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2501. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23360964.
Bedell VM, Wang Y, Campbell JM, Poshusta TL, Starker CG, Krug RG 2nd, Tan W, Penheiter SG, Ma AC, Leung AY, Fahrenkrug SC, Carlson DF, Voytas DF, Clark KJ, Essner JJ, Ekker SC. In vivo genome editing using a high-efficiency TALEN system. Nature. 2012 Nov 1;491(7422):114-8. doi: 10.1038/nature11537. Epub 2012 Sep 23. PubMed PMID: 23000899; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3491146.
Feuda R, Hamilton SC, McInerney JO, Pisani D. Metazoan opsin evolution reveals a simple route to animal vision. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Nov 13;109(46):18868-72. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204609109. Epub 2012 Oct 29. PubMed PMID: 23112152; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3503164.
Cong L, Ran FA, Cox D, Lin S, Barretto R, Habib N, Hsu PD, Wu X, Jiang W, Marraffini LA, Zhang F. Multiplex Genome Engineering Using CRISPR/Cas Systems. Science. 2013 Jan 3. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23287718.
Mali P, Yang L, Esvelt KM, Aach J, Guell M, Dicarlo JE, Norville JE, Church GM. RNA-Guided Human Genome Engineering via Cas9. Science. 2013 Jan 3. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23287722.
