.And just like that, it was almost October 2020.....
It has of course been an eventful, worrying, frustrating and challenging year for everybody, but now seems like a good time to reflect on the events of 2020 so far, and remind ourselves of the many good things happening in and around the lab! In the Autumn of last year, together with Kyra Campbell, Natalia Bulgakova, and Alex Fletcher we hosted a Royal Society Discussion Meeting on the theme of Contemporary Morphogenesis. We had wonderful speakers, and great discussion around the evolution of analysis techniques in traditional developmental biology settings. Our special edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B was published in August, and contains a mix of original research and review articles to accompany the meeting. Philippa successfully defended her PhD thesis right at the beginning of lockdown, and Chris followed with a successful defence in May, both through virtual vivas. Despite the fact we couldn't celebrate these milestones as a group, we are very proud of the new Dr Carr and Dr Derrick. Well done both. Although in person conferences aren't going ahead this year, the scientific community has worked very hard to bring researchers together, and we have been busy 'attending' various meetings, conferences and seminars, including the Genetics Society of America's TAGC conference, the British Society for Matrix Biology autumn meeting (congrats to Chris on winning a prize), the Royal Microscopical Society's Light-sheet conference, and we are looking forward to the upcoming European Zebrafish Meeting. Emily spent some time during lockdown learning some (very!) basic animation to help illustrate our work, and trying to stop her cat gatecrashing every. single. meeting. We are now settling into our new rhythm at the University - seminar series are starting up again in virtual format, lab work is up and running, grant applications and papers are being submitted, and it feels good to look to the future.
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....to everybody who sponsored us on The Big Walk!
On Friday 28th June Emily, Chris and Juliana, along with Bateson Centre members Phil, Emily G, Jack, and honorary member Katie, walked a very hilly 37 miles as part of the University of Sheffield's fundraising drive to raise money for Sheffield Scholarships. It was a long day (starting at 6:30am from the uni, and finishing at 9:30pm), that was at times very physically and mentally challenging, but we finished as a group with a smile on our faces. The blisters are healing, the toenails have turned beautiful shades of blue, the hamstrings have de-strung themselves, and so far we have raised over £1000, which is just incredible (total so far across all the uni teams who participated is a whopping £26,000!) So, thank you for your support. We are very proud of ourselves, and very happy to be able to contribute to this important cause. And of course, the photographic evidence that we finished how we started - smiling...... We are excited to announce we have a British Heart Foundation 3 year fully-funded PhD position available for Autumn 2019 entry. The project in entitled 'Investigating the role of Dock6 and Eogt in cardiac development and congenital heart disease' and is open to UK and EU students with a minimum 1st or 2:1 classification BSc degree (or equivalent) in a related field. In brief the project will entail using zebrafish to investigate the origins of congenital heart defects in Adams-Oliver Syndrome. Includes zebrafish genetics, genome editing, transgenesis, and high-resolution imaging. Further information can be found here
This year the University of Sheffield's Big Walk event will be raising money for Sheffield Scholarships. The scheme is aiming to increase the number of scholarships we can offer to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, improving access to education and helping people study the subjects they are passionate about.
A team of us from the Bateson Centre will be walking 37 miles on the 28th June to raise money for this important cause. We have set up a fundraising page as a team - if you'd like to support us then please go ahead and pledge - any amount is valued, and we appreciate your support. Also, send strengthening thoughts to my knees, and soothing thoughts to my feet! We have a PhD project available for October 2017 entry.
The project is funded by the MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership, and more details can be found here Closing date for applications is 6th January 2017 Please contact Emily at [email protected] for an informal chat about the project and application process We would like to extend a warm welcome to Chris, our new PhD student, who has just spent his first few weeks in the lab. Chris studied for both his BSc and MSc at Cambridge, and has now exchanged the flatness of Cambridgeshire for the lovely views in the Peaks, and Drosophila oogenesis for zebrafish hearts. Nice to have you on board! .We are very happy to announce that Emily has been awarded a 5 year British Heart Foundation Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship, which will support our work on understanding the cellular mechanisms of heart development. Click on through and read more about the wonderful range of cardiovascular research that the BHF funds. Here in the lab we use zebrafish to understand heart development and disease, and on the BHF website you can also read more about the advantages of working together with our stripy friends......
Back at the beginning of June we went to the British Cardiovascular Society Meeting in Manchester. The meeting is supported by the British Heart Foundation, and covered a wide range of cardiovascular-related subjects, from the clinical to the more 'basic' aspects of heart research. While we were there we bumped into the Naked Scientists who produce radio programs and podcasts aimed at making exciting and interesting science accessible to everybody (with a very impressive range of subjects covered). They were producing a special show around the BCS Meeting, focussed on different aspects of heart health and research. We had a chat to them about heart development in the embryo, and why it's an important area of cardiovascular research. You can check out the full show here, and keep an ear out for Emily talking about how we use our zebrafish friends to understand congenital heart diseases!
We are incredibly happy to announce that we have been awarded a two year Springboard grant from the Academy of Medical Sciences. The Academy has partnered up with the Wellcome Trust to provide 19 researchers with grants of up to £100,000 to support them on their path to independence. You can find out more about this new scheme, and see a list of all awardees and projects, on the Academy website.
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