Visitor of the Week: Aridni Shah

Meet Aridni Shah of the National Center for Biological Sciences, a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (India). Aridni is a member of Axel Brockmann’s lab, and she made her first trip to CSHL to attend the 2018 Biology & Genomics of Social Insects meeting where the graduate student presented a talk entitled “Egr-1, a candidate molecular player involved in time-related learning and memory processes in honey bees?”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in understanding the molecular processes underlying behavior. Currently, I am working on honey bee foraging behavior to identify the different molecules that might underlie the learning and memory processes during this behavior. So far, I have identified a molecule, Egr-1 that seems crucial for foraging and foraging-related time memory.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
I was keen on understanding how behaviors are brought about by underlying molecules and a short training in the lab made me realize that honey bees are an excellent model to look at behavior and hence the molecules could be identified easily with such strong behaviors.

How did your scientific journey begin? 
My late father was my greatest inspiration. He loved science and, when we were young, used science to show us “tricks” like making a needle float or constructing a steam engine model for a science project. His inquisitiveness helped nurture mine and so I have been very fascinated by science from a young age and always wanted to get into the field to make new discoveries and to answer certain yet-to-be answered questions.  

Was there something specific about the Biology & Genomics of Social Insects meeting that drew you to attend?
Validation and feedback from the social insects community were my incentives for attending this meeting because it is a major meeting on the molecular basis and mechanism of sociality attended by eminent scientists and colleagues working on sociality. At this meeting, I had the opportunity to present my work and discuss it with an international community and get valuable feedback that would help me pinpoint any shortcomings in my current work plan. Also, I was also able to assess the impact of my work which is helpful when it comes to setting a more defined direction for further progress

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
That social insects are very versatile - the level of sociality can range from solitary to subsocial to incipiently social to advanced eusocial, can have single queen or multiple queens, and can have various forms of reproduction like thelytoky and arrhenotoky - therefore, there is a system which can be used to study these variations and the genes involved with it.

What did you pick up or learn from the meeting that you plan to apply to your work?  
This meeting was extremely helpful for me in many ways. As my first meeting with the social insects community, I met a lot of colleagues with similar interests. I had enlightening conversations with Guy Bloch, Hagai Sphigler, Daniel Friedman, Mehmet Döke, and Manuel Nagel from whom I learnt of a new technique he is establishing, in situ sequencing, that I would like to implement in my future work as it will help me study multiple genes at a time. Discussions about my future work with Guy and Hagai on manipulations of the circadian clock has helped me refine my experiments that I hope will result in meaningful outcomes. 

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 say that he/she should definitely attend the meeting. It is small but since it is attended by all the major scientists working in the field, it provides the right environment to get to know one another and each other’s work very well. The environment was very friendly and you can easily walk up to anyone and start a conversation. 
 
What do you like most about your time at CSHL? 
I enjoyed the meeting a lot. The place is beautiful, and the people are amazing. I was able to put faces to names whose work, until now, I had only read about, and I engaged in a lot of amazing conversations, both scientific and non-scientific, with people I met. And yes, the lobster was great!

Thank you to Aridni 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: Jennifer Waters & Talley Lambert

The annual CSHL course on Quantitative Imaging is one of our most in-demand courses, attracting -- this year alone -- four times as many applications as it has spots. The course debuted in 2011 as a reinvention of a previous long-running course on immunocytochemistry and live-cell imaging. 

Last month, we sat down with two of the four co-instructors, Jennifer Waters and Talley Lambert, both of whom were instrumental in shaping what the course has become today. Because it’s so competitive, our chat began with how they select trainees each year from the pool of applicants: 

Jennifer: I go right to the personal statement: I want to know what their motivation is for taking the course. We’re focused not just on microscopy, but on using microscopes as a tool for making measurements – quantitative microscopy – and we’re looking for applicants who recognize the importance of that in their research. We also look for applicants who we think, after having taken the course, will benefit others. So, for example, an application from a lab that develops fluorescent proteins but doesn’t have a lot of classically-trained microscopists would be a great candidate; having a microscopist in that group would be a great help in validating the proteins. 

Talley: We like to make sure that what they are seeking is a good match for what we're teaching. 

Jennifer: That’s true. Sometimes people are looking for something different. We also want applicants who, based on where they are in their career, will benefit the most from the course. We often get applications from first-year graduate students and, based on our many years of teaching, we know that’s a bit too early. They have to have their hands in research for a while. Second-year graduate students are borderline. We do take them, and we had a couple this year, but I think third year is the sweet spot. By then, they’ve really figured out what their project is, and they’ll take what they learn here and start using it right away.

Talley: I definitely like re-applications too.

Jennifer: Yes! We have gotten applications we would like to accept but didn’t because we thought they weren’t quite ready yet. So we’re happy when we see those people apply to the course again; in fact, the chances of their re-application being selected is higher. 

If you’re among the ~25% accepted to train at this course, this is what your typical day would look like: 

Jennifer: It’s exhausting. We start at 9 o’clock sharp and for an hour and a half, we have coffee and continental breakfast while going over questions and reviewing anything the trainees didn’t quite get during the previous night’s lab. To me, it’s really important to have a good stretch of time each day for open discussions. After that, we launch into the first lecture of the day, which tends to run for another hour and a half, sometimes two hours. Next is lunch and then it’s another lecture, lab, or both in the afternoon. With the exception of maybe one evening talk, we try not to schedule any lectures after dinner. Instead, we end the day in the lab, and that generally goes until 10 o’clock. 

Talley: There’s very little unscheduled time from 9 AM to 10 PM, except one hour for lunch and one hour for dinner.

Jennifer: If a person has never been involved in this sort of course, then it might feel like a lot. But compared to other courses, we don’t go as late into the evenings; I just think people need a good night’s sleep if they’re going to continue to learn while they’re here. Even though the pace is intense, there’s a lot of time where we’re just talking because the labs are very much set up like that. The TAs and instructors all genuinely enjoy teaching, so they’re in the lab, checking if anyone has questions, chitchatting, getting cornered by the trainees to talk about individual projects at home, etc. So there’s a lot of time when we’re just interacting and getting to know each other, to the point where we’re all sad on the last day that it’s over. 

Talley: For anybody we bring in as a TA or invited speaker, I see it as a requirement that they be there for the students, because it’s fun and necessary for them to get access to experts. 

Jennifer: I agree, it’s really important for the trainees to get as much of our time as they want or need. 

The discussion then moved to how the course has and hasn’t changed in the last eight years:

Jennifer: Well, Talley and I haven’t changed – we’re still here! [Laughter]

We have always had an analysis component, which is one of the things that makes our course unique. We are serving what we see as a great need: people who want to use microscopy and do analysis need to learn both of them. That’s a very hard thing to do because each topic could easily fill the full two weeks of the course. 

But the course has changed quite a bit since 2011. For one, a majority of the lectures are now given by people like Talley and me -- people who run core facilities. Our jobs consist of talking to and guiding people who need to use microscopy and use it properly. We do a lot of teaching at home, so we have built up an expertise and understand what the course trainees don't know, and what they need to know. We put a lot of practice into the best ways of presenting concepts so trainees can absorb the ridiculous amount of material we throw at them in a short period of time. We do still have professors and principal investigators, who are absolute experts in their specific applications, come to the course and give seminars where they show really nice, rigorous applications of the type of technology that we teach. 

Something else that has changed is the technology itself, and we make an effort to keep up with it and stay cutting-edge. For example, we didn’t teach light sheet microscopy at all the first couple of years but as it is now coming of age, we’ve doubled the amount of lecture and lab-time spent on it. Each year, we think of what new technology people should know about – even if they're not asking for it. 

Talley: In any given year, I can think of things we've added or removed. We used to put more time into two-photo microscopy but have sort of de-emphasized that a bit. We also used to have a sample preparation component that is completely gone now, and we've emphasized super resolution imaging to varying degrees. The different microscopy techniques just kind of ebb and flow, and it's a continuous consideration to change with them.

Besides being a lead instructor for this course, Jennifer is also a lecturer at two of our other courses, Drosophila Neurobiology and Imaging Structure & Function in the Nervous System. We asked her about differences between the three courses, and if there’s a benefit for a Drosophila or Imaging alum to also train at the Quantitative Imaging course:

Jennifer: Absolutely. Both the Drosophila and Imaging courses are designed for imaging a specific application. The Drosophila course is all about how to prepare flies for imaging and then how to image them. The Imaging course is a little broader in that it’s imaging for neuroscience, but it’s still very much focused on that field. So they  spend a lot of time on multi-photon imaging, which we don’t, because that’s commonly used in neuron imaging. In our course, we don’t play favorites in terms of what organism you want to image, and we cover a wide range of imaging modalities that can be used. In fact, somebody who has taken one of the other two courses actually has a great background for then taking our course. We like people to have a little bit of microscopy experience for our course because there’s a lot of material that takes a lot of time to absorb.

We next asked for their favorite moments from the course over the past eight years:

Talley: When I think of our highlights, I think of the guest lecturers. 

Jennifer: Oh! We had Eric Betzig one year before he won the Nobel Prize. 

Talley: That’s a good highlight.

Jennifer: I like to think it means that we’re really good at picking guest lecturers. [Laughter]

Talley: Correlation and causality. [More laughter]

Jennifer: The year he won the Nobel Prize, it was on my list to invite him again. Not because he’d just won but because he’s great and really fascinating to listen to. He kindly declined of course, but I had to email him anyways. I’m always very proud of the lecture series we put together for the course. Our invited speakers are microscopists who speak at big meetings in front of large auditoriums of people. For them to come here, give a lecture to our 16 students, have dinner and chat with them, it’s such a great experience. 

Talley: This is not a specific moment, but when one of the students asks an invited speaker a great question that you’re pretty confident they just learned at the course, and yet they totally get it…

Jennifer: That pride. 

Talley: Yeah, and sometimes a student gives a presentation on something they did in the course lab that is really striking and very, very good. Just seeing the trainees’ progress. It’s not a specific moment but it’s definitely a category that we always talk about.

Like Jennifer, Talley has been with the course since 2011. However, Talley started out as trainee, then worked his way through the “ranks” to his current role as co-instructor. Here’s what he had to say about his evolution with the course:

Talley: It’s difficult to overstate the impact of taking this course. I mean, it changed my career. I came as a biologist to learn some techniques and left saying, “I think I want to do that instead.” I was just enamored with all of it. 

In the beginning, it was just all learning and I didn’t really feel like I had anything to give. I was absolutely terrified when I gave my first lecture, and it was on-camera! Now I feel like I have a lot to give -- I feel genuinely capable of fielding any topic in this course. The biggest change has been in my level of confidence and the relative degree of what I’m learning versus what I’m giving. It’s been fantastic. I enjoy teaching this course and I love Cold Spring Harbor because this is where things changed for me. 

Jennifer concluded our chat with why she continues to teach this course at CSHL: 

Jennifer: I have taught at other places besides Cold Spring Harbor and I love teaching here. The support that we get is amazing. My home institution keeps asking me to run a course like this there; I said I’d consider it if they give me a team of people like the one Cold Spring Harbor has to support this course!

The Quantitative Imaging: From Acquisition to Analysis course returns to the Laboratory next April and is already accepting applications here. For an inside look into the course, visit its Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

For more conversations with other course instructors, check out the rest of our A Word From series. 

Photo: Constance Brukin

Visitor of the Week: Martin Sztacho

Meet Martin Sztacho of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Martin is a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Biology of the Cell Nucleus led by Pavel Hozák. The CSHL first-timer is on campus for the 2018 Nuclear Organization & Function meeting where he presented a poster entitled “The functional characterization of PI(4,5)P2 - rich Nuclear Lipid Islets and their importance in regulation of RNA Polymerase II driven transcription”.

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in understanding the relationship between nuclear architecture and regulation of RNA pol II transcription process. I employ a multi-disciplinary approaches using various imaging and biochemical techniques combined with the mass spectrometry to describe the role of phosphoinositides in nuclear compartmentalization. 

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
As I earned my PhD, I studied the involvement of actin cytoskeleton and phosphoinositide interactions in the regulation of bone homeostasis. During my first postdoctoral fellowship, I worked on protein-lipid interactions while studying the regulatory mechanisms of autophagy. Then six months ago, I had the great opportunity to join Professor Hozák’s laboratory which is pioneering in the field of nuclear phosphoinositides.    

How did your scientific journey begin? 
During my undergraduate studies, I became fascinated by how relatively small changes, like phosphorylation/dephosphorylation of a particular protein, can lead to a huge change in the entire cell behavior with drastic consequences, such as cancerous progression. I became interested in learning as much as I could about protein-protein interaction and their regulations, which led to my interest in protein-phospholipid interactions during my PhD and postdoctoral training. 

Was there something specific about Nuclear Organization & Function meeting that drew you to attend?
This meeting covers the main topic of my research which deals with nuclear compartmentalization, and it has fully met my expectations. 

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
Realizing that the observations of other people are in accordance with a number of ours. 

What did you pick up or learn from the meeting that you plan to apply to your work?  
Biology of the cell nucleus in a very complex field wherein I still feel like a rookie. This meeting was a great opportunity for me to gain huge amounts of information from the field’s leading researchers, and to informally discuss and get feedback on my work. From this meeting and these discussion, I will return to my institute with several ideas for my research.  

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 highly recommend this meeting to a scientist at any stage of his/her career. I found it very helpful and inspiring, and think others will have the same experience.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is my first CSHL meeting, and I would be very happy if I get an opportunity to visit CSHL again in the future.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I have to admit that in addition to the compelling scientific vibes, CSHL – Banbury where I was housed and the main area where the meeting was mostly held – is fantastically located. I am actually very sorry that I forgot to pack my running shoes because then I would have been able to see more of it. 

Martin’s participation at this meet was enabled by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (17-09103S) and the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the ASCR, v. v. i. institutional support (RVO: 68378050) . On behalf of Martin, thank you to these institutions for supporting and enabling our young scientists to attend CSHL meetings where they expand their knowledge and network. 

Thank you to Martin 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: Yajing Gao

Meet Yajing Gao of the UT Southwestern Medical Center. Yajing is a fifth-year graduate student in the Texas institution and is a member of Chandrashekhar Pasare’s and Edward Wakeland’s labs. She was on campus for the 2018 Gene Expression & Signaling in the Immune System meeting where she presented a talk entitled “Transcriptome profiling of pathogen-specific CD4 T cells identifies T cell-intrinsic caspase-1 as an important regulator of Th17 differentiation.”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I am interested in how innate immune cues from dendritic cells instruct CD4 T cell differentiation and protection against pathogens. I am currently working on using a newly developed in vitro model to profile and study pathogen-specific CD4 T cell differentiation.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
I entered graduate school prepared to study neuroscience or immunology. But after taking a couple of immunology courses, I decided to focus on immunology and specifically DC-T cell interactions. The complexity of CD4 T cells intrigued me which, I realized, is a very fundamental -- but unanswered -- puzzle piece of the immune response when determining infection. Now that we have tools that enable us to examine T cell responses at a higher resolution (for example systems biology approaches, and high-throughput profiling), I thought it is an interesting idea to revisit the role of DCs in shaping CD4 T cell differentiation.

How did your scientific journey begin? 
I grew up with my grandfather who was a scientist in physics and an avid parakeet breeder. I partook in his hobby when I was a child and parakeet breeding was not only among my first “genetic” experiments but I enjoyed the act of experimenting. My grandfather encouraged me to read more sophisticated books on the physiology of birds and animals in general, and had always strongly supported my pursuing a higher education. He kept my enthusiasm up for scientific exploring and experimenting, and because of my grandfather, I became interested in animal genetics which eventually led me to choose a biology major in college.

Was there something specific about the Gene Expression and Signaling in the Immune System meeting that drew you to attend?
My research approach to immunological problems from a transcriptional perspective fits very well with the overarching theme of this meeting. Also, I was very honored to be selected to speak about my unpublished data.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
I have two key takeaways: 1) The single cell profiling technology has really taken us to an era of high resolution of cellular heterogeneity; 2) Always approach a biological problem with an evolutionary view in mind.

How many meetings at CSHL have you attended?
This is the first CSHL meeting I ever attended, and I would love to come back for another immunology meeting.

Did you pick up or learn something new from the meeting that you plan to apply to your work?  
Since I am working on in vitro model of CD4 T cell differentiation and investigating the role of DCs in this biological process, I was very impressed by Dr. Gabriel Victora’s technique of labeling DC-T cell interaction in vivo. I envision that I could combine his technique into my system and start to focus on profiling their interactome.

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 will definitely recommend them to come. It is a fantastic scientific meeting. The quality of the talks is very high and a large amount of new information was discussed. Also, there is ample time for interaction and scientific conversation.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really loved the food! The culinary staff was very friendly and, on the first day of the meeting, they pointed out all of the good sightseeing spots on campus.

Thank you to Yajing 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: Celia Deville

Meet Celia Deville of the Birbeck, University of London (United Kingdom). The postdoctoral researcher is a member of Helen Saibil’s lab in the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology, a joint institute between Birbeck and University College London. The CSHL first-timer was on campus for the 2018 Protein Homeostasis in Health & Disease meeting where she presented a poster entitled “Structural pathway of regulated substrate transfer and threading through the Hsp100 disaggregate ClpB.”

What are your research interests? What are you working on?
I’m interested in understanding how some chaperone re-solubilize protein aggregates in the cell. I currently study a Hsp100 protein and use cryo-electron microscopy to characterize its structures in different states to understand how it can disentangle protein aggregates.

How did you decide to make this the focus of your research?
I became familiar with the problems of aggregation of unfolded or misfolded proteins during my PhD when I studied disordered proteins using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This resulted in my becoming interested in the mechanisms involved in prevention and reversal of protein aggregation, and disaggregates are fascinating proteins machines for a structural biologist!

How did your scientific journey begin? 
I initially studied physics and chemistry, and was interested in the molecular mechanisms behind chemical reactions. I fell into structural biology because proteins are amazing molecular machines able to perform complex tasks in a specific and highly-regulated manner. More specifically, I’m interested in the importance of dynamics and conformational changes of the macromolecules driving biological processes.

Was there something specific about Protein Homeostasis in Health & Disease meeting that drew you to attend?
I work on protein disaggregation so the topic of the meeting along with the fantastic line-up of speakers drew me to attend. It is also a great opportunity to informally discuss recent results with researchers who apply a wide range of techniques to a common set of questions.

What is your key takeaway from the meeting?
It’s all a question of balance, which isn’t surprising when you are talking of homeostasis! It is fascinating to see that protein quality control mechanisms can be both very general and finely-tuned to adapt to certain substrates, stress conditions etc.

How many CSHL meetings have you attended?
This is the first CSHL meeting I have attend, and I very much enjoyed its program and organization on protein homeostasis so I would love to attend again in the future.

If someone curious in this meeting asked you for feedback or advice on it, what would you tell him/her?
I would definitely recommend the meeting to anyone interested in chaperones and/or protein homeostasis. This meeting will broaden your views and allow you to meet experts developing new methods and models to understand the general questions of the field.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I really enjoyed the science and non-science related exchanges with the other meeting participants. The atmosphere is relaxed and people are very accessible – no matter their career level.

Thank you to Celia 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.