A Word From: James Faeder

L to R: Jorge Zanudo, Carlos Lopez, James Faeder

This week, we hosted the biennial meeting on Cellular Dynamics & Models, which brings together experimental cell biologists with mathematical and computational scientists. It debuted at CSHL in the mid-2000's as the Computational Cell Biology meeting, and one of the features that makes it unique is the integration of software tutorials into the regular program. James Faeder, a longtime participant in the meeting, organized a tutorial at the 2015 meeting on a software package his research group developed to model and visualize biochemical reaction networks (BioNetGen), and he helped organize the entire meeting this year. We caught up with James for a quick Q&A regarding the meeting and its tutorials. 

We have a great collection of leading researchers in the modeling community -- people who are developing all kinds of advanced tools for doing mechanistic modeling, statistical modeling, and discovery -- and we then combine many of those people with leading experimentalists who have a quantitative orientation, either in cell biology and molecular biology, to study signal transduction or metabolic regulation. By bringing these people together and getting them to talk, I think we foster a lot of new collaborations.

Actually, I was talking this afternoon at lunch with Tom Pollard and he said, “You know, I know about half of the people here and the other half is new.” It’s really great to be interacting with new people and learning new things about what people are doing. And you know many of these people are working on related fields. Maybe they’re studying different organisms so that you haven’t encountered them at the standard meetings you would go to, or maybe they’re studying slightly different molecules, or they’re using different methods, so we really learn a lot from each other.

Here's what James had to say about the tutorials:

This year we took tutorials from the abstracts and we had nice a turn out. That people want to do that and reach this community, I think is a sign that the idea of the tutorials is gathering momentum...It’s a great opportunity for people who do primarily experimental biology to come and learn about some of the tools, or for other modelers to learn about innovative things that other software developers are doing in the modeling community. 

Thank you to James for taking the time to chat with us; and for more conversations with our other meeting organizers and course instructors, go here. If you're interested in learning more about what else James is working on, make sure to visit his lab's website. 

Cellular Dynamics & Models will be back at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2019.

Visitor of the Week: Ulrich Dobramysl

Meet Ulrich Dobramysl of Wellcome Trust / CRUK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Uli is a Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow at Jennifer Gallop's lab and our visitor of the week. He is a CSHL first-timer and it was the annual Quantitative Imaging: From Acquisition to Analysis Course that brought him across the pond.

What are you working on? 
I am interested in understanding the dynamics and regulation of filopodia, which are thin, finger-like protrusions that cells use to explore their environment, from a statistical physics point of view. To this end, I am using a data-driven mathematical modeling approach combined by a variety of different microscopy techniques to generate data.

What is your key takeaway from the Course?
My key takeaway is that in order to do quantitative imaging and microscopy correctly, one needs to plan ahead, think about the available techniques and choose the most appropriate one for the biological question. Furthermore, it is necessary to be familiar with the methods and know all the necessary trade-offs. This course gave us the tools to do this confidently and efficiently.

Was there something specific about or a skill set covered at the Quantitative Imaging Course that drew you to apply for the course?
I wanted to learn about state-of-the-art fluorescence microscopy techniques used in biology and, in particular, how to do quantitative imaging and image analysis correctly. This course exceeded beyond my imagination, due to the vast expertise of the instructors and the hands-on experience we got on the many different microscopes.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL? 
CSHL is a beautiful and quiet place that allows one to focus solely on the topic of the course. Instructors, TAs and organizers are exceedingly approachable and friendly. I enjoyed my stay at CSHL.

Thank you to Ulrich 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: Kevin Mitchell

Over the week, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory hosted participants of the Wiring the Brain meeting. Started in 2009 by Kevin Mitchell, the first two iterations of the biennial meeting were held in Ireland before it was relocated across the pond to New York for the last three meetings. 

We checked in with Kevin for a brief Q&A conversation regarding the Meeting and the role it plays in bringing together scientists and creating learning and collaborative opportunities.  

The Wiring the Brain meeting is really about bringing people together from different disciplines who are all interested in the same thing but coming at it from very different angles. So we’ve got people working on development of the brain, genetics, neuro-developmental disorders, down at the cellular level and all the way to psychiatry and psychology, how these systems actually work. And the powerful thing is that most of the time those people don’t necessarily talk to each other and when they do they can find that they have these similar interests and a lot of interesting collaborations can come out of these things where people with different skill sets, different perspectives see that overlapping interest and develop powerful new ways to approach these problems...You think you’re working on the same thing but when you see a totally different angle on it, it opens up new windows of investigations.

Also, thank you to Kevin for taking the time to chat with us. For more conversations with our other meeting organizers and course instructors, go here. 

Also, if you're interested in the topic, make sure to follow Kevin on Twitter or his blog because if there's one thing Kevin knows about...it's @WiringTheBrain.

Visitor of the Week: Mark Dornan

Our Visitor of the Week Series returns with Mark Dornan kicking off the 2017 edition. Mark, a postdoc in Jean DaSilva's Lab at CRCHUM/L'Universite de Montreal (Canada), is on campus for our annual Expression, Purification & Analysis of Proteins & Protein Complexes Course. Read on for more on Mark and his work. 

What are you working on?
I am working on developing new positron-emitting imaging agents to visualize and quantify biochemical processes. Right now, I have two exciting projects with applications in diabetes and prostate cancer.

What is your key takeaway from the Course?
I’ve learned a lot about the fundamental molecular interactions and reactions between the proteins and reagents used for their purification, and how to use this information to make smart choices while generating and improving on procedures.

How many CSHL courses have you attended?
This is my first time attending a course at CSHL. 

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
CSHL’s harbor-side campus fosters an excellent environment to get to know the instructors and other students. Undoubtedly, my favorite part of attending this CSHL course is the new friends I have made.

Thank you to Mark 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.