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2013-02-10 New articles we read this week

Gene Therapy/Retinal degeneration

  1. Cideciyan AV, Jacobson SG, Beltran WA, Sumaroka A, Swider M, Iwabe S, Roman AJ, Olivares MB, Schwartz SB, Komáromy AM, Hauswirth WW, Aguirre GD. Human retinal gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis shows advancing retinal degeneration despite enduring visual improvement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jan 22. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23341635.

Neuroscience

  1. 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.

Genetics

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

When you are away for Christmas…

you may get a pleasant surprise when you come back!

2013-01-13 New articles we read this week

Evolution

  1. 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.

Genetics

  1. 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.
  2. 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.

CUHK Ophthalmology Forum 2012 cum HKEH 20th Anniversary Symposium at the Hong Kong Eye Hospital

In December 2012, I was invited to give a plenary lecture in the CUHK Ophthalmology Forum 2012 cum HKEH 20th Anniversary Symposium at the Hong Kong Eye Hospital.

Fai giving a plenary lecture on using zebrafish to find new drugs to treat eye diseases

This was a meeting right after the The 8th International Symposium of Ophthalmology, in which I shared with a group of international delegates about our vision on screening drugs to treat eye diseases with the zebrafish model. Many delegates stayed behind to attend this CUHK and HKEH forum, in which we shared new insights into eye research and clinical practice.

Some of the participants to the forum, including Profs. Chris Leung (CUHK), Calvin Pang (CUHK), Clement Tam (CUHK), Stanley Chi (HKEH), Zibing Jin (Wenzhou eye hospital), Wei Li (NEI), Yuk Fai Leung (Purdue), Neeru Gupta (University of Toronto), and Tien Yin Wong (Singapore National Eye Centre). The full schedule of the meeting is available here.

Saying good bye to Prof. Neeru Gupta

Giving presentation award to graduate students

 

Is professor career stressful?

Forbes has just published an article about professor’s career as the No. 1 of the least stressful jobs of 2013, and that has caused a huge uproar by many colleagues in the comments. Apparently, the article was written with misconceptions of what a professor’s life is like, based on innuendos and information from CareerCast. While the author has made an addendum after hearing a lot of angry comments in two days, the tone is disappointingly impersonal. Basically she only said I hear you, I am only relaying the message from CareerCast, thank you for your comments and I understand your life MAY be more stressful than portrayed. You can actually see how people are critical about that too, and I am not repeating that here.

For students who are fascinated about “doing research” as a career/becoming a professor, I encourage you to read through these discussions, as well as a followup article “Top 10 Reasons Being a University Professor is a Stressful Job” in Forbes by another contributor who has a science background to see the actual dedication that one has to put in to be in this profession.

Updated 2013-01-06.

I just received a link to another take of this discussion: “The Least Stressful Job for 2013? A Real Look at Being a Professor in the US“.

2012 Christmas Party

A highlight of a memorable evening!

More people dying from obesity than malnutrition

From the Metro news:

World now has ‘more people dying from obesity than malnutrition’

A shit paper…

is published in PLOS neglected tropical diseases. However, the study itself is certainly not shitty.

An In-Depth Analysis of a Piece of Shit: Distribution of Schistosoma mansoni and Hookworm Eggs in Human Stool

 

The 8th International Symposium of Ophthalmology – Hong Kong

Fai has just participated in the 8th ISO-HK from December 14-16, 2012 and interacted with many colleagues around the world.

The visit of a delegation from the Joint Shantou International Eye Center

On 12th November 2012, Prof. Calvin Chi-Pui Pang from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Prof. Haoyu Chen from the Joint Shantou International Eye Center (JSIEC), Shantou University & the Chinese University of Hong Kong visited the Leung Lab and the research facilities at Purdue University.

Prof Pang and Chen first met with Prof. Marietta Harrison, Associate Vice-President for Research and Dr. Geanie Umberger, Assistant Vice President for Corporate and Foundation Relations to discuss collaborative plans between the Leung Lab, Purdue and JSIEC. Our long-term goal is to explore the opportunities in clinical eye research and drug screening  in China.

From left to right: Dr. Umberger, Prof. Harrison, Prof. Pang, Prof. Leung, and Prof. Chen.

Then, Profs. Pang and Chen visited the Bindley Bioscience Center. Dr. Tommy Sors, the Center Project Manager, showcased the Purdue’s infrastructure for preclinical investigations.

From left to right: Prof. Chen, Prof. Leung, Prof. Pang and Dr. Sors.

Finally, there was a dinner gathering with Prof. Marietta and other distinguished professors from the Department of Biological Sciences to celebrate friendship and new collaborative relationships.

Back row: Prof. Don Ready, Prof. Chen, Prof. Leung and Dr. Liyun Zhang, postdoctoral fellow in the Leung Lab.
Front row: Prof. Bill Pak, Prof. Marietta, Prof. Pang, and Prof. Richard Kuhn.