Visitor of the Week: Alex Moon

Meet Alex Moon of New Mexico State University! The third year PhD graduate student in Dr. Jiannong Xu’s Mosquito Genomics lab participated in this week’s Genome Engineering: CRISPR Frontiers virtual meeting. This is his first meeting at CSHL and he presented a poster entitled “CRISPR-Cas13a mediated RNA interference in Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.”

Tell us about your research.
I study the immunometabolism of the malaria mosquito.  By inhibiting the metabolic infrastructure, we are able to prevent the immune system from working correctly, thus killing the mosquito and preventing malaria.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
During my undergraduate studies, I was an Emergency Medical Technician and worked in local hospital Emergency rooms and on the county EMS as a “street-medic.”  I found a passion in helping fix and care for patients, and it set a precedence to my love for medicine.  I obtained a master’s in biomedical sciences from a medical school, and then transitioned to a researcher instead of a medical doctor.  New Mexico State University has an interest in mosquitoes and prevention of mosquito-borne diseases.  Each year, billions of people throughout the world are at risk for diseases carried by the mosquito, and millions succumb to mosquito-borne disease.  The mortality rate has begun to trend upwards, desperately requiring new methods for mosquito control and prevention of disease transmission.  I became interested in the genetics of the mosquito, and it ultimately led me to my current PI and dissertation topic of inhibiting the immunometabolism of malaria mosquitoes.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
As a child, I grew up watching Bill Nye the Science Guy, and he started my interest in science.  I would watch documentaries and read about researchers and doctors who helped prevent and eradicate diseases and use biomedical technologies to prevent mortality, and I wanted to be just like them.  My time as a medic showed me my interests lie in infectious disease research leading me to study mosquito-borne disease.  As my scientific journey progresses, my inspiration continues to be the people I helped and will help in their time of illness.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
It is my hope to prevent infectious diseases from inflicting great harm to humans.  We are in a constant arms race to kill the disease before it kills us, and I want to be in the fight.  My hope is to help heal and prevent diseases to large populations of people, and I believe vaccines are the vehicle in driving the prevention of disease progression and mortality.  In the next five years I hope to be researching and developing new, cutting-edge vaccines.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I most love the traveling and talking aspect of research.  More specifically, I love the fact research allows me the opportunity to meet new people while traveling.  What other profession allows you to travel to new places, see friends (or people that might become your new friends), and talk about what you do every day? 

What drew you to attend this meeting?
I listen to at least one audiobook a week while driving to lab or performing bench work.  I was able to listen to “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race” by Walter Isaacson, and it references this gene editing conference multiple times.  I heard it, quickly looked it up on the CSHL website, and submitted an abstract.  Also, if Walter Isaacson is reading this, thanks for the inspiration to attend this meeting, and your book was fantastic!

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
A key takeaway from the Meeting was the vast amount of CRISPR work currently being performed in many new Cas systems.  I originally used Cas13a for gene knock-downs, and this meeting gave me new ideas for different Cas systems for knock-outs or knock-ins.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
Plain and simple: DO IT.  There is no conference available that has specific CRISPR work encompassing multiple areas of the field.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
The most memorable aspect of this Meeting is the ability to represent the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma at a renowned CRISPR Meeting.  I would like to give a “Yakoke” (Choctaw for “Thank you”) to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Chahta Foundation for the academic support – truly, I wouldn’t be able to present and attend world-renowned meetings without the assistance. 

Thank you to Alex for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Alex Moon

Visitor of the Week: Thaysa Tagliaferri

Meet Thaysa Tagliaferri of the Federal University of Viçosa (Brazil)! Thaysa is a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Tiago Mendes’ lab within the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She is taking part in the 2020 Genome Engineering: CRISPR Frontiers virtual meeting during which she virtually presented a poster entitled “CRISPR-Cas9 antimicrobial―Resistance reversal potential in challenging conditions.” This is Thaysa’s first CSHL meeting and though “so much information is available and being able to access them from your couch at home was very convenient, [she misses] the personal contact of in-person events.”

Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on the development of an efficient sequence-specific antimicrobial using the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9. We evaluate and optimize CRISPR-Cas9 performance when targeting high-copy number vectors and when employed in clinical bacterial isolates.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I have been working with antimicrobial resistance pathogens since my MSc. During that time, I attended the iGEM competition where CRISPR-Cas was a hot topic. This opportunity inspired me to connect this technology with my supervisor’s research line (antimicrobial resistance). Even with no previous experience with CRISPR-Cas, we challenged ourselves in learning more about this promising field and this eventually became my PhD topic. We were hopeful to contribute to alternative treatments in view of antimicrobial resistance sharply increasing levels. Figuring out how CRISPR-Cas behaves in challenging conditions paves the way for better understanding its impact in a hypothetical clinical scenario.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I’ve always been a curious individual, and my curiosity has always led me to seek answers and acquire new knowledge. To me, this is the core of science, being able to minutely understand how the world works and to be able to contribute to the development of society throughout the journey. My family has also served as a great personal inspiration. All the effort they’ve put into my education helped me get where I am today.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
Antimicrobial resistance is a public health problem leading to millions of deaths every year worldwide. I hope my work progresses CRISPR-Cas against this fight. This means raising new research questions in the field, and stimulating new researchers to join such an important and fascinating area and help us achieving results that will ultimately benefit humans.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love the multifaceted aspect of science: bench work, experimental design, results analysis, writing, drawing, oral presentations, teaching, scientific communication and so many other different areas we can explore! All of the above make it impossible to find science boring and they allow us to test new hypothesis that could significantly contribute to societal development.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
I’m really fascinated about the versatility of CRISPR-Cas techniques and the avenues it has opened in science. This meeting is a great opportunity to stay up-to-date with recent developments in the field and its application in different areas, including against COVID-19.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
The extraordinarily fast pace in which CRISPR-Cas develops, and the fact that there is still so much to explore! I became inspired by different methodological strategies that I’m definitely going to try and implement in my future projects.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
The organization team has done an amazing job to minimize the drawbacks that an online conference may cause. Several communication channels were created, meetings with the speakers were carried out, and all posters were made available. This was such a great event! My advice is this: get familiar with all tools they offer, and you will be able to extract and enjoy the most out of it.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
If I may cite two memorable moments, I would first highlight the tribute to Rosalind Franklin, which acknowledged her groundbreaking contribution to science and to genome editing. The panel discussion around the COVID-19 also deserves mention as it included CRISPR-Cas based diagnostics for SARS-CoV-19 detection and the importance of massive testing for containing the virus spread, which was incredibly relevant given our current situation.

Thank you to Thaysa for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Thaysa Tagliaferri

Visitor of the Week: Maira Almeida

Meet Maira Almeida of Iowa State University. A PhD candidate co-mentored in the labs of Dr. Maura McGrail and Dr. Jeffrey Essner, Maira just finished participating in Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas. The Brazilian national’s first meeting at CSHL included a poster presentation on “Short homology based CRISPR/Cas9 targeted integration for Cre/lox conditional gene inactivation tools in zebrafish”. The opportunity to explain her research to her peers and receive their feedback “went really well.” And those who approached her poster were “really surprised with the method…recently developed in [their] lab called GeneWeld. This method allows efficient CRISPR/Cas9-mediated integration directed by short homology.”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am particularly interested in developing and applying genome engineering methods to understanding the molecular mechanisms behind developmental processes and diseases. I investigate how chromatin regulators control stemness and neural gene networks during neural development, and how their misregulation can lead to cell transformation and brain tumorigenesis.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your work?
Since high school, I knew I wanted to work with genetics focused on the cancer field. During my undergraduate studies and Masters, I worked on animal genetics and human genetics centered on numerical cognition, respectively. When I started my PhD, I finally got to work on what I’ve always been interested in: developmental genetics applied to the understanding of tumorigenesis. In the past 4 years I was introduced to the genome editing field, specifically CRISPR technology, and I quickly fell in love with it. Now, I have the opportunity to join both of these areas that I am passionate about, which makes me really excited about my research projects.

How did your scientific journey begin?
I have been interested in science since I was a child. In my first year of high school, I had a wonderful biology teacher, Prof. Paulo Flávio (better known by his nickname Paulinho), who introduced me to genetics and it was love at first sight. I remember my teacher talking about gene function and drawing pedigrees for genetic disorders and schemes depicting the different cell division steps. I was fascinated about everything. At that point, I already knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to understand the molecular mechanisms involved in genetic disorders. My goal has always been to use my work to help others. Someday in the future, I hope to be able to apply all this genetics knowledge  I am acquiring to develop efficient therapies for patients in need.

Was there something specific about the Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas Meeting that drew you to attend?
The opportunity to learn about the latest in genome engineering and to share how I’ve applied CRISPR/Cas to create tools for recombinase genetics in zebrafish. Moreover, to meet leaders in the field including Dr. Fyodor Urnov, Dr. Jennifer Doudna, and Dr. Jonathan Weissman and learn about their exciting advances in CRISPR research.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
My key takeaway from this meeting is that the genome engineering field is rapidly evolving and its potential to revolutionize the medical field in the next few years is enormous. Currently, there are so many CRISPR systems already available or being described, and they represent a breakthrough in the understanding of molecular mechanisms behind genetic disorders and in the development of efficient therapies for diseases such as cancer.

What and/or how will you apply what you’ve learned from the meeting to your work?
On the second day of the meeting, Dr. David Liu gave an incredible talk where he described a technique called Prime Editing for introducing precise genome modifications. I was astonished by his results and I really would like to try this new technique in our model system, the zebrafish.

If someone curious in attending this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would greatly recommend this meeting to anyone interested in genome engineering. The Genome Engineering: Frontiers of CRISPR/Cas meeting is a wonderful opportunity, especially for young scientists like me, to learn from the leaders in the field and establish connections with other researchers that are developing similar work.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really enjoyed walking around the campus and the friends that I made. I met wonderful people from many different countries.

Thank you to Maira for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Visitor of the Week: Chirayu Chokshi

Meet Chirayu Chokshi of the Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute at McMaster University (Canada). The graduate student, who’s working towards a PhD in Biochemistry with a focus on brain tumor stem cells, is a part of the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Research Program led by Sheila K. Singh. Chirayu is on campus participating in his first CSHL meeting – Genome Engineering: The CRISPR/Cas Revolution – and also presented a poster titled “Discovery and validation of genes essential for survival of recurrent Glioblastoma brain tumor initiating cells”.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
My research focuses on discovering novel therapeutic targets responsible for therapy resistance in glioblastoma, the most common and a highly aggressive form of malignant brain tumor in adults. I use CRISPR-Cas technology to probe brain tumor initiating cells for context-specific genetic vulnerabilities. 

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
Glioblastoma remains a therapeutic challenge. Despite the use of gold standard therapy, patients face a median survival rate of less than 15 months. Previous research heavily focused on using multiomic analyses to capture snapshots of glioblastoma progression and inform therapeutic efforts. Through a collaboration between my current supervisor, Dr. Sheila K. Singh and Dr. Jason Moffat at University of Toronto, I learned about the potential of CRISPR-Cas technology to functionally direct target discovery in glioblastoma in an unbiased manner. Today, I utilize this genetic engineering tool in combination with multiomic data to identify novel therapeutic targets in treatment-resistant glioblastoma. 

How did your scientific journey begin? 
My scientific journey began during a lecture I attended in 2014 by Saul Perlmutter at UC Berkeley. Going in with little knowledge about astrophysics, I was blown away by his research which led to the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe. At that lecture, I realized the potential of science to answer seemingly impossible questions about the world around us. I was especially inspired by Dr. Perlmutter’s use of supercomputers to analyze light emitted by supernovae and arrive at the conclusion that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. 

Was there something specific about Genome Engineering: The CRISPR/Cas Revolution meeting that drew you to attend?
The main reason I attended this meeting is to learn about new applications of CRISPR Cas technology from the world leading experts.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
My key takeaway from this meeting is that CRISPR Cas technology is constantly evolving and leading to an infinite amount of applications to gain insight into various diseases.  

What did you pick up or learn from the meeting that you plan to apply to your work?  
At this meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to see the many original, innovative applications of CRISPR Cas technology to answer important scientific questions. From the development of modulators of Cas activity to fate mapping with CRISPR technology, I am excited to apply these new technologies to gain insight into glioblastoma progression. Specifically, I would like to set-up CRISPR Cas screening experiments to ask specific questions about the regulation of stemness in glioblastoma cancer stem cells.

If someone curious in attending a future iteration of this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would tell them that this meeting is a great way to learn about recent advances in CRISPR Cas technology, network with leading experts, and set-up future collaborations. 

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is my first CSHL meeting and I would love to attend future CRISPR-Cas and cancer modelling meetings. 

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
CSHL is a very special place. Irrespective of where you look around this campus, you’ll always see a beautiful view of historic architecture integrated with nature.

Thank you to Chirayu for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured scientists - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

A Word From: Maria Jasin

Last weekend, we hosted the third CSHL meeting on Genome Engineering: The CRISPR/Cas Revolution. We met with Maria Jasin, one of the three original organizers and a CSHL meeting veteran, to talk about the CRISPR meeting. Here is a quick overview of her research:

We study double strand break repair and genomic instability, with a particular interest in the breast cancer suppressors BRCA1 and BRCA2. We’ve also had a major interest in understanding meiotic recombination and how double strand breaks are repaired there, and maybe aberrantly repaired in other syndromes. 

Maria provided a great overview of the meeting, how it has evolved with the field, and the developments she’s most excited about. 

One major change is the expansion in the number of enzymes and nucleases that are being used. The first meeting focused primarily on Cas9 itself. Now, many different enzymes are used that have better applications than Cas9 in some contexts, which is an exciting development in the field that is much more represented in the meeting than it was in the past. It’s a recognition of how large the CRISPR repertoire is in bacteria, the almost limitless number of proteins that can be cloned and characterized, that have somewhat different specificities or other reasons that make them preferable in different situations. 

This year’s meeting started with a lot of CRISPR biology which I found really exciting, because it lets us non-CRISPR biologists understand this beautiful genetic system of adaptive immunity in bacteria. Also, there’s been an emergence of anti-CRISPRs - peptides that can halt CRISPR activity. These peptides are numerous and act differently by blocking different steps, which is a really fascinating system. It’s perhaps not surprising that there are some practical uses to them as well. 

One of the really exciting things for me was Kathy Niakan’s talk about using human zygotes to address important questions about embryonic development in humans. Obviously, it’s a very difficult system that needs to be heavily regulated. But as much as we know about mouse development and the very earliest stages of mouse embryos, one thing that’s clear is how different things are in human embryos. We have known for a long time that human oocytes are very prone to aneuploidy, and that results in miscarriages or birth defects. Trying to understand the genome instability that arises in the early stages of embryos is something that’s also important for human health and infertility. 

Another talk I was excited about was given by Danwei Huangfu, who uses human pluripotent stem cells to understand pancreatic development. For a long time, we’ve only been able to use cell lines in humans that are transformed and highly aberrant. The ability to use cells that can be differentiated into human lineages is really exciting and highlights the ability to understand, again, human embryonic development at a much later stage. It’s related to human genetics that in the past we wouldn’t have been able to do.  

Also, my student, Weiran Feng gave a talk about his work on homologous recombination – one of the pathways people like to use to modify the genome. It was very touching for me to see one of my students develop a beautiful story and present it in a beautiful way. 

These days, there’s no shortage of scientific meetings focused on CRISPR. We asked Maria what sets the CSHL meeting apart from others, and also who benefits most from attending it.

There certainly has been a large explosion of CRISPR and genome engineering meetings, but the one thing that’s particularly exciting about this meeting is its emphasis on biology. We, of course, have talks that are more technical, about improving the CRISPR systems or adapting new systems or doing screens. But we’ve balanced it by having a lot of biologists present who are trying to understand human development. We even had a talk this year on using killifish  as a new model for aging, so the meeting brings together a lot of biologists.   

Commercial interest companies love this meeting because they are able to showcase their work here. Most of the talks are from academic scientists though, who love this meeting for the basic biology and technology developments that are coming from and presented by academic labs. 

And Cold Spring Harbor is always a great place for graduate students and postdocs. We do have invited speakers, but the number of talks given by postdocs or grad students outnumber the invited talks. My first talk as a scientist was at CSH when I was a graduate student! Attending a Cold Spring Harbor meeting is an ideal way to start your career because you are able to not only interact with a number of scientists but also have the opportunity to speak or present a poster. 

We ended the conversation on how this year’s meeting turned out. 

I had thought that, with time, the meeting would get less exciting but this year’s meeting was just as exciting as the first one. It’s a testament to the growth of the field, the creative approaches people are taking, and the expansion of the number of nucleases involved. We brought in people with different expertise – stem cells, modifying human embryonic cells, etc. – which brought together people who don’t know or often see other. The meeting hits a lot of different areas in biology even if there’s a CRISPR coherence to it, and that promotes great scientific interactions.

The Genome Engineering: The CRISPR/Cas Revolution meeting will return to campus on August 22-25, 2018. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter for meeting updates. 

To read more conversations with CSHL meeting organizers and course instructors, browse through our A Word From... series.