Leung Lab Blog ›

2010-08-22 new articles we read this week

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Genetics

Klein RJ, Xu X, Mukherjee S, Willis J, Hayes J. Successes of Genome-wide Association Studies. Cell. 2010 Aug 6;142(3):350-1. PubMed PMID: 20691890.
Wang K, Bucan M, Grant SF, Schellenberg G, Hakonarson H. Strategies for genetic studies of complex diseases. Cell. 2010 Aug 6;142(3):351-3. PubMed PMID: 20691891.
McClellan J, King MC. Response: why it is time to sequence. Cell. 2010 Aug 6;142(3):353-5. PubMed PMID: 20691892.
Wilkinson LS. Developmental biology. Which parental gene gets the upper hand? Science. 2010 Aug 6;329(5992):636-7. PubMed PMID: 20689006.

Segmentation

Masamizu Y, Ohtsuka T, Takashima Y, Nagahara H, Takenaka Y, Yoshikawa K, Okamura H, Kageyama R. Real-time imaging of the somite segmentation clock: revelation of unstable oscillators in the individual presomitic mesoderm cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jan 31;103(5):1313-8. Epub 2006 Jan 23. PubMed PMID: 16432209; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1345707.
Hirata H, Bessho Y, Kokubu H, Masamizu Y, Yamada S, Lewis J, Kageyama R. Instability of Hes7 protein is crucial for the somite segmentation clock. Nat Genet. 2004 Jul;36(7):750-4. Epub 2004 May 30. PubMed PMID: 15170214.

Delta-Notch

Sang L, Coller HA, Roberts JM. Control of the reversibility of cellular quiescence by the transcriptional repressor HES1. Science. 2008 Aug 22;321(5892):1095-100. PubMed PMID: 18719287; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2721335.
Breunig JJ, Silbereis J, Vaccarino FM, Sestan N, Rakic P. Notch regulates cell fate and dendrite morphology of newborn neurons in the postnatal dentate gyrus. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Dec 18;104(51):20558-63. Epub 2007 Dec 11. PubMed PMID: 18077357; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2154470.
Baek JH, Hatakeyama J, Sakamoto S, Ohtsuka T, Kageyama R. Persistent and high levels of Hes1 expression regulate boundary formation in the developing central nervous system. Development. 2006 Jul;133(13):2467-76. Epub 2006 May 25. PubMed PMID: 16728479.
Hirata H, Yoshiura S, Ohtsuka T, Bessho Y, Harada T, Yoshikawa K, Kageyama R. Oscillatory expression of the bHLH factor Hes1 regulated by a negative feedback loop. Science. 2002 Oct 25;298(5594):840-3. PubMed PMID: 12399594.

Systems Biology

Rusk N. Advent of synthetic life. Nat Methods. 2010 Jul;7(7):487. PubMed PMID: 20603906.
Moseley JB, Nurse P. Cell division intersects with cell geometry. Cell. 2010 Jul 23;142(2):184-8. PubMed PMID: 20655459.

Neuroscience

Clark DA, de Vries SE, Clandinin TR. Watching the fly brain in action. Nat Methods. 2010 Jul;7(7):505-6. PubMed PMID: 20588268.

Nature Insights Plasticity

Yamanaka S, Blau HM. Nuclear reprogramming to a pluripotent state by three approaches. Nature. 2010 Jun 10;465(7299):704-12. Review. PubMed PMID: 20535199; PubMed Central PMCID:PMC2901154.
Pera MF, Tam PP. Extrinsic regulation of pluripotent stem cells. Nature. 2010 Jun 10;465(7299):713-20. Review. PubMed PMID: 20535200.
Petronis A. Epigenetics as a unifying principle in the aetiology of complex traits and diseases. Nature. 2010 Jun 10;465(7299):721-7. PubMed PMID: 20535201.
Dulac C. Brain function and chromatin plasticity. Nature. 2010 Jun
10;465(7299):728-35. Review. PubMed PMID: 20535202.
Spiller DG, Wood CD, Rand DA, White MR. Measurement of single-cell dynamics. Nature. 2010 Jun 10;465(7299):736-45. Review. PubMed PMID: 20535203.

Filed in journal watch | | Comments Off

2010-08-16 new articles we read this week

Monday, August 16, 2010

Corbo JC, Lawrence KA, Karlstetter M, Myers CA, Abdelaziz M, Dirkes W, Weigelt K, Seifert M, Benes V, Fritsche LG, Weber BH, Langmann T. CRX ChIP-seq reveals the cis-regulatory architecture of mouse photoreceptors. Genome Res. 2010 Aug 6. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 20693478.
Holmes Finch. Comparison of Distance Measures in Cluster Analysis with Dichotomous Data.[pdf]
Grimm O, Wieschaus E. The Bicoid gradient is shaped independently of nuclei. Development. 2010 Sep;137(17):2857-62. PubMed PMID: 20699297.
Cepko C. Neuroscience. Seeing the light of day. Science. 2010 Jul 23;329(5990):403-4. PubMed PMID: 20651144.
Greenbury SF, Johnston IG, Smith MA, Doye JP, Louis AA. The effect of scale-free topology on the robustness and evolvability of genetic regulatory networks. J Theor Biol. 2010 Aug 6. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 20696172.

Filed in journal watch | | Comments (2)

Is My Thesis Hot or Not?

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

It has been a while since the last update… well, just come across a funny website which can be useful in some ways.

Is My Thesis Hot or Not?

By reading a number of titles from other people’s work, you will start to appreciate what works in your own setting and what does not.

Filed in Fai's sharing, fun | | Comments Off

Most people are not observant

Sunday, December 13, 2009

This is not a new idea, but look at this funny experiment done at Harvard. I just can’t stop wondering how much we are missing when we are staring at our experiments with our own preconception…

Most People Are Not Observant – Watch more Funny Videos

Filed in Fai's sharing, fun, human behaviour | Tagged behaviour, human, psychology | Comments Off

Christmas party etc.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Please share/finalize your ideas for

party location
gift exchange
lab present

Filed in lab discussion | | Comments (1)

Why Roosters Have Wattles?

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

From Smithsonian.com

The test hens responded more quickly to the tidbitting males that had the normal or stationary wattles, less quickly to the one with the extra floppy wattle (….) and slowest to the male lacking wattles. After the hen’s attention was gained, though, she reacted about the same to each of the four animated chickens. Smith suggests that the wattle helps a rooster gain a hen’s attention when he is tidbitting, rather like a human guy wearing flashy clothes while doing his best dance moves to try and pick up chicks.

Filed in animal behaviour, Fai's sharing | | Comments Off

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009

Monday, October 5, 2009

goes to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider, Jack W. Szostak.

“for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”

link to Nobel prize.org

link to the press release

Filed in Fai's sharing, News | Tagged Nobel prize | Comments Off

2009 Ig Nobel prize winners!!!

Friday, October 2, 2009

Some interesting work here, the full winner list is available from their website:

PEACE PRIZE

Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.
REFERENCE: “Are Full or Empty Beer Bottles Sturdier and Does Their Fracture-Threshold Suffice to Break the Human Skull?” Stephan A. Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael J. Thali and Beat P. Kneubuehl, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, vol. 16, no. 3, April 2009, pp. 138-42.

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE

Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.
REFERENCE: “Exploring Stock Managers’ Perceptions of the Human-Animal Relationship on Dairy Farms and an Association with Milk Production,” Catherine Bertenshaw [Douglas] and Peter Rowlinson, Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009, pp. 59-69.

ECONOMICS PRIZE

The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

MEDICINE PRIZE

Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.
REFERENCE: “Does Knuckle Cracking Lead to Arthritis of the Fingers?”, Donald L. Unger, Arthritis and Rheumatism, vol. 41, no. 5, 1998, pp. 949-50.

LITERATURE PRIZE

Ireland’s police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means “Driving License”.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE

Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).
REFERENCE: Zimbabwe’s Casino Economy — Extraordinary Measures for Extraordinary Challenges, Gideon Gono, ZPH Publishers, Harare, 2008, ISBN 978-079-743-679-4.

Filed in Fai's sharing, fun, News | Tagged Ig Nobel prize | Comments Off

Journal club on 9/25

Sunday, September 20, 2009

We will all read two short articles about Cystic Fibrosis:

Couzin-Frankel J. The promise of a cure: 20 years and counting. Science. 2009 Jun 19;324(5934):1504-7.
Pearson H. One gene, twenty years. Nature. 2009 Jul 9;460(7252):164-9.

Each one of us will then pick one of the following topics, elaborate the discussion by reading an additional latest reference of your choice and present the major ideas in the lab meeting. (Liyun, as a physician for years, should pick up a more research-based topic).

The format will be a 10-min presentation followed by 5-min discussion. If you are discussing a research paper, the breakdown should be as follows: 5-min for background+experimental design, 5-min for 1-2 major findings. For a review paper, the breakdown should be approximately 3 mins for each major idea. The presentation should have no more than 4 slides, preferably 3, you can also use the board. We will also bring a timer.

I suggest the following six topics:

Pathophysiology
Etiology and epidemiology
General therapeutic approaches excluding gene therapy
Functional characterization of CFTR
Animal models, challenges and prospects
Gene therapy, challenges and prospects

Please reply and this thread to select your topic, and upload both your presentation and the reference article to the appropriate lab meeting folder. I look forward to discussing these ideas with you!

Filed in journal club, lab discussion | Tagged cystic fibrosis | Comments (7)

Biotechnology Mobile Laboratory Education Program in Hong Kong

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Dr. William Mak, a good friend and a great role model, has been devoting his career to improving the biotechnology education for primary and secondary students and teachers over the years. He has established the Hong Kong Biotechnology Education Resource center with Sik Sik Yuen Ho Yu College and built a university-level research laboratory to facilitate the process. He has been working on another interesting project recently – a custom-built coach bus that serves as a mobile laboratory for the community. He made me feel proud to be a Hong Kong scientist.

More information can be found here:
http://www.hkberc.org.hk
http://mobilelab.hoyu.edu.hk

Here are a few pictures of my visit…

: Good job!

: An oven for incubation

: There is even a sink in the bus!

: A shaker for growing bacteria for microbiology experiments

: A refrigerator for microbiology experiments

: I think these are the controllers of the solar panels on top of the bus.

: The power control and air conditioning panels.

: A microwave oven for making agarose gel

: All speakers are fine-tuned and there will be no echo during the teaching session.

: A high definition camera for capturing the demonstration from the teachers, which will be broadcasted to the LCD screens on top of the working stations, as well as a huge LCD TV on the side of the bus for entertaining the public audience.

: The audio-visual controllers of the mobile laboratory.

: Dr. William Mak and his teaching podium.

: The kids will be given colorful lab coats too.

: Teaching our new generation about DNA finger printing.

: Teaching our new generation about DNA extraction.

: Each working station is very well equipped... a great blessing for the students.

: The drawers are all custom built and nicely polished.

: Every working station is equipped with a LCD TV so that the students can see the demonstration clearly even when they are in the other end of the bus.