Visitor of the Week: Edwin G. Peña-Martínez

Meet Edwin G. Peña-Martínez of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Río Piedras Campus. The third-year PhD Candidate at Dr. José A. Rodríguez-Martínez’s laboratory (The JARM Lab) is at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory participating in Systems Biology: Global Regulation of Gene Expression—his first meeting as a graduate student and his first in-person meeting since the pandemic. Edwin presented his first in-person poster titled ‘Elucidating the Molecular Mechanism of Non-Coding Variants in NKX2-5 Binding Sites on Congenital Heart Disease.’

Tell us about your research, and how you decided to focus on this area/project.
I work with cardiac transcription factors (TFs) involved in heart development. Specifically, I research the molecular mechanisms of regulatory variants in Congenital Heart Defects (CHDs). I got involved in this project after meeting my mentor, Dr. Jose A. Rodríguez-Martínez, in my first graduate course. I have always been fascinated by Molecular Biology, and this course got me interested in understanding protein-DNA interactions.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I was inspired to become a scientist thanks to Dr. Elsie Rivera. I had no idea doing research was a career option until she approached me to work in her lab. It was working with Dr. Rivera that I discovered that I wanted to pursue a PhD.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
Five years from now I see myself finishing a post-doc and starting my career in academia. I wish to provide research opportunities while inspiring undergraduate students to pursue a career in STEM.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
What I love most about being a scientist is discovering something new in my field. In a way it’s like being the first to learn a secret, but one I am allowed to share.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
Being a scientist is a constant learning curve. Leading researchers in my field attend this meeting; as a result, CSHL Systems Biology is the best platform to learn the latest methods and discoveries in my field.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
The best takeaway from this experience is the perspective and feedback I received from the countless researchers I met. This will allow me to approach my research with new methods and techniques that I previously did not consider.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would tell them to stop considering it and come to CSHL. I was extremely nervous and thought that I was not ready to participate. However, it was an amazing opportunity and I learned more than I could imagine. I can’t wait to come back for the next meeting!

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
Probably one of the most memorable experiences is meeting some the scientist I most admire. For example, I had the honor of meeting Dr. Polly Fordyce after reading most of her publications.

Is this your first in-person meeting since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
I started my PhD in the same year the pandemic started, and I have not been able to attend an in-person meeting. Participating in CSHL Systems Biology was exciting and fun. I’ve been missing this kind of networking experience.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
CSHL is such a welcoming and cozy place. It is by far one of the friendliest environments I have had the privilege of joining. Not to mention the place is beautiful.

Thank you to Edwin 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 Edwin G. Peña-Martínez

Visitor of the Week: Phoolwanti Rani

Meet Phoolwanti Rani of the San Diego Biomedical Research Institute. Rani is a postdoctoral fellow and member of Prof. David Gilbert’s lab. She spent last week with us at the Eukaryotic and DNA Replication & Genome Maintenance meeting – her first meeting at CSHL —- and “[she] enjoyed connecting with brilliant scientist from all over the world. The poster sessions and speaking with colleagues on Slack were really amazing.”

Tell us about your research.
I am working on developing the technique to generate better map of the factors important for replication and maintaining proper replication timing. MCM is one the challenging origin licensing factor during replication. I am trying to map MCM in a single cell (mammalian) with better resolution.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
During my Ph.D., I worked on Topoisomerases and got introduced to transcription-replication conflicts. I got attracted to replication and finally landed in the laboratory which works on replication timing.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, aerospace scientist who served as the 11th president of India. I read his autobiography in school and got inspired to become scientist. I was also interested in biology, and so chose to pursue my career in the same field.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
Research is limitless. Finding an answer to one question always leads to another puzzle to solve.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I was very much interested by the discussion session, and learnt the importance of continuing the discussion in science. Amazing ideas and collaborations come up during discussions.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering participating in this meeting?
It is an amazing platform to share knowledge, build collaborations and look for career opportunities.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
My PI mentioned in the meeting that I am going to be working on a very important unresolved problem.

Thank you to Phoolwanti 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 Phoolwanti Rani

Visitor of the Week: Dagmawi "Dag" Mamo

Meet Dagmawi “Dag” Mamo of James Madison University! The first-year graduate assistant is a member of Dr. Casonya Johnson’s lab and spent the past week with us at the Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Transcription virtual meeting – his first CSHL meeting.

Tell us about your research.
My research is currently focused on defining the regulatory context in which the HES protein HLH-25 regulates transcription. I will be correlating data obtained from RNA-Sequencing and ChIP-Seq to elucidate the location, sequence, and topography of DNA elements required for HLH-25 mediated transcription repression.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
As an undergraduate student, I did my Honors thesis on developing transgenic constructs as part of our laboratory’s large-scale project. As a master’s student, I wanted to continue the journey of trying to understand the mechanisms of HES transcription factors’ mediation of transcription repression. This is because characterization of HLH-25 could serve as a model for studying the role of HES-1 in human cancers and could lead to the development of new treatments. 

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
My introduction to doing research and subsequent growth as a scientist could not have been possible without the incredible support and nurturing of my advisor Dr. Casonya Johnson, my mentor Caylin Murray, and several other advisors.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love being part of a broad project that uses a systems approach to understand a molecular event and in doing so contributes to the discovery of new knowledge—knowledge that can be used for improvements in human health.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
The opportunity to learn from and network with scientists from across the world doing studies under the umbrella of “mechanisms of eukaryotic transcription”.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I am walking away with an immense appreciation of the breadth and intricacy of eukaryotic transcription mechanisms. Seeing the collaboration and discussions among different labs and experts has encouraged me to invite more feedback and critique in the work that I am doing in order to create more learning opportunities and avenues for myself so that I may produce high-quality work.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would encourage anyone considering to do go through with attending this meeting. My advice would also be to attend as many sessions as possible because, although certain sessions may be out of your  circle of interest, being able to see different presentation formats and communication styles of scientific information are added bonuses to the vast well of information that’s presented.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
It was very fascinating to learn that chromatin confirmation signatures (CCS) can now be accurately used as biomarkers of human diseases going as far as being able to predict patients’ responses to treatments. It was exciting overall to see the extensive work that gets done, the new applications that are used, and the interdisciplinary collaborations made to produce these works of scientific literature.  

Thank you to Dag 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 Dag Mamo

A Word From: Sandra Rehan, Olav Rueppell and Seirian Sumner

Pre-banquet cocktail hour during the Biology & Genomics Social Insects meeting in 2018.

In March 2021, researchers of the social insect community again convened at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) for the third meeting on Biology & Genomics of Social Insects—albeit virtually due to the covid pandemic. The online format did not deter these scientists from presenting and discussing the latest developments in their field. On the contrary, the number of participants this year more than doubled compared to the last iteration in 2018, and 92% of the 232 registered participants joined the lively meeting discussions on exchanging a whopping 4,462 messages and 113 files via the platform during the meeting’s 3 days!

First held in 2007, this meeting was called ‘Honey Bee Genomics & Biology Workshop’ until 2015 when it underwent a name change to reflect progress in the wider field of genomics. We asked 2021 Meeting Co-organizers Sandra Rehan, Olav Rueppell and Seirian Sumner to talk us through the renaming as it relates to the evolution of their field, as well as the effects the name change may have had on the meeting itself.  

Sandra: The first iteration of this meeting in 2007 was originally titled “Honey Bee Genomics” to coordinate efforts for the honey bee genome that had just been published in 2006.  

Olav: The Western honey bee (Apis mellifera) was one of very few Metazoan genomes available in 2006 so the focus of the first meeting was justifiably on that one particular species. A lot of those early studies created excitement because they were performed on a social insect for the very first time. But we have made a lot of progress since then that has broadened the taxonomic focus and the questions that we can ask.  

Sandra Rehan with Amro Zayed on the Nichols Biondi Hall Patio.

Sandra: Quickly thereafter, the ant and termite community started sequencing genomes and many more wasp and bee genomes became available; currently we are up to 53 bee genomes and nearly 100 ant genomes. The field exploded over the past 15 years with hundreds of researchers around the world working on social insect genomics. I have attended the past three CSHL meetings and I’ve noticed a pleasant shift in taxonomic diversity recently, especially in this year’s meeting, to reflect the reality of our research community and range of research organisms. 

Seirian: As a non-honeybee researcher, I recall being very much a minority at the 2007 meeting. I came with my poster on Polistes gene expression, and I remember being in awe of the incredible progress honeybee researchers had made. Over the years, the huge progress made in honeybee genomics laid the path for genomic analyses of other social insects and, as Sandra and Olav mentioned, the focus has now shifted to be about social insects in general. Our meeting this year included talks and posters on the full spectrum of social insects, including bees (not just honeybees), ants, wasps and termites. Today, the only thing that stands in the way of genomic analyses of a species is getting high-quality DNA/RNA (and the small matter of funding to sequence it!).

Olav: It is not only the sheer number of available genomes, but also the availability of accessible analysis tools and broadly applicable functional tools that has revolutionized the field. As organizers, we ensured that the taxonomic diversity in the program reflected this trend. The name change reflects a categorial switch, but underlying that is the continuous progress of our scientific community.

The social insect community typically meets at CSHL every 3-4 years, but does it get together somewhere else during the “off” years?

Seirian: Yes, of course. There are several other societies that run conferences; of most relevance is the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI). 

Sandra: We meet at the international IUSSI meetings every 4 years, and the IUSSI also holds regional meetings around the world every two years. In North America, many of our researchers also meet at the annual Entomological Society of America meetings as well as the quadrennial International Congress of Entomology (ICE) meetings.

Seirian: The CSHL meeting is always carefully timed to fall in the in-between years.

What sets your CSHL meeting apart from the IUSSI meeting?

Olav Rueppell interacting with a poster presenter during the 2018 Biology & Genomics of Social Insects’ poster session.

Sandra: The meetings I mentioned include genomics but typically also focus on the behavior, ecology and evolution, as well as applied questions in our field.

Seirian: To add to that, the meeting at CSHL has a specific focus on genomics that is useful for a more specialist audience as talks and posters can dive in deeper and more quickly. 

Olav: In addition to being very thematically focused, this meeting is quite unique because it emphasizes unpublished cutting-edge results and is restricted to one session (meaning it does not have parallel sessions).

Sandra: This meeting is typically small and intimate, and the on-site housing makes for a wonderful networking experience. 

Olav: The intimate size is great at encouraging conversations.

Meetings at CSHL are indeed well-known for their intimate size. But are there groups not attending this meeting that could benefit from participating? 

Seirian: By being at CSHL, these meetings possibly fall off the radar for people who study social insects from the more ecological (non-molecular) perspective. And this is a shame as attending these meetings is a great way to learn about the exploding field of genomics and can take our study of social insect biology to a new level. So, whilst it is a very popular meeting among those who already work on the genes side of social insects, I think it's a very valuable opportunity for others; especially early career researchers who may like to broaden their approaches.

Sandra: New early career investigators would find this meeting very useful for networking and career development. It also provides insights into new and emerging questions in the field, which is wonderful for shaping future research directions and collaborations.

Olav: The opportunity to network in a great environment, plus the high quality of talks and focus on innovative studies make this an attractive meeting for everyone. So, in my view, everyone interested in understanding the biology of social insects--particularly from a genomics perspective--would benefit from this meeting.

Seirian Sumner checking out the posters in Nichols Biondi Hall.

Was there a scientific development presented at this year’s meeting you are most excited about?

Olav: The broad comparative analyses of many genomes to understand social evolution and the reports on single-cell sequencing that allow an unprecedented resolution of our functional genomic studies were two developments that I found very exciting.

Sandra: Yes, the use of single cell RNAseq (scRNA-seq) across honey bees, paper wasps and ants was exciting to see. This is a relatively new technology to our community and it’s being implemented in leading labs across North America and Europe.

Thinking back on all the years you’ve attended this meeting, what is your favorite memory of it?

Sandra: The closing banquet and daily mixer sessions are my favorite parts of this meeting. CSHL is such a uniquely tranquil place to talk science while overlooking the water on the open lawn. Three years ago, I remember sitting on picnic tables to discuss new ideas and form international collaborations that have since resulted in major research funding, a review paper this year, and ongoing working relationships.

Seirian: Lobster. I'd never had a whole lobster before the 2015 meeting and a grant was hatched over those lobsters that ended up being funded! I recommend eating to get the creative juices going. 

It’s safe to say that we all prefer in-person meetings but was there an aspect of the virtual format that you liked? What portion(s) of the meeting were enhanced by the virtual format?  

Seirian: Personally, I can't wait for face-to-face meetings to resume. What I love about conferences are the chats outside of the talks, getting to know the people whose papers I've read, and making new friends with a shared love of these quirky insects. But equally, the forced move online for conferences is making a huge difference to inclusivity for people around the world especially those who don't have the funds to travel; particularly those in developing countries, and those who have caring commitments that preclude them taking time away from family. The other thing that was fun was the 'online chat' whilst the talks were going on. At an in-person meeting, you can't lean over to a colleague and ask them a question about the talk but when it's online, you can have a running discussion alongside the talks, which can enrich what you get out of it. 

Sandra: Slack indeed allowed for ongoing discussions and shared resources not easily possible in an in-person format. It provided a safe space for students and researchers to converse, and ask questions of speakers that they could answer in their own time. Many ongoing and stimulating conversations were new to this meeting thanks to the addition of Slack and I hope it continues.

Olav: I too liked that we were able to have a larger and more diverse group of attendees than in previous years. The relatively high price tag of an in-person meeting made it unintentionally exclusive, which we fortunately were able to overcome this year thanks to the online format. Maybe a hybrid model can be offered in the future to encourage a broader, more diverse and equitable participation.

Thank you to Olav, Sandra and Seirian for “socializing” with us about Biology & Genomics of Social Insects, which returns to CSHL in March 2025. For information on this meeting, be sure to regularly check here.

Visitor of the Week: Maddie Jensen

Meet Maddie Jensen of University of Rochester! The second-year graduate student in Eric Wagner’s lab joined us at this week’s Eukaryotic mRNA Processing virtual meeting. This is Maddie’s first meeting at CSHL, and she’ll join us again at next week’s Mechanisms of Eukaryotic Transcription. She presented a poster titled ‘Identification and structural basis of a novel cellular inhibitor of the Integrator complex’. Her first virtual poster presented was “overall…a great experience! [She] enjoyed connecting with colleagues over Slack and setting up Zoom meetings to [further] discuss their both of their works.”

Tell us about your research.
My project aims to better understand the role of the metazoan Integrator complex in concert with its binding partners such as CG7044/Brat1. Integrator was initially found to regulate snRNA 3’-end processing but has now been shown to be more of a broad transcriptional regulator.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I went to graduate school knowing that I had an interest in molecular biology, specifically RNA and its various roles. I wanted to be a part of better understanding the fine details of our cells.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I had several scientific mentors throughout my high school and college careers that saw qualities in me, such as curiosity and a desire to learn, that caused them to encourage me to pursue research. Their expertise and encouragement throughout the different stages of my academic career had a profound impact on me. Getting to experience the passion they had for science and for their students inspires me to want to do the same for others.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope that my research will push our understanding of transcriptional regulation forward to one day be applied to human health intervention.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I really love being able to dig into a specific topic. As a kid, I always loved all kinds of puzzles. That was something my family and I enjoyed doing together. Now, I kind of see my research as uncovering the puzzle of cellular regulation. It is exciting to discover and I enjoy being able to constantly learn new things!

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
This meeting highlighted the breadth and depth of mRNA processing research. It is also encouraging to be able to see colleague’s hard work pay off in new discoveries. These two things highlighted the importance of having a network of researchers to discuss, challenge and encourage each other. I hope to apply this collaborative way of thinking to the way that I conduct my own research.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would highly recommend attending this meeting! My advice would be to interact with as many people as possible. Even though it was virtual, there are plenty of opportunities to connect. I learned so much from hearing about other’s research and getting their feedback on my own.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
I really enjoyed the PI Chats ancillary event on Wednesday evening. The PIs and more experienced students all provided unique points of view. I definitely plan to implement some of the advice they gave about daily life in the lab, time management and communication with colleagues. 

Thank you to Maddie 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 Maddie Jensen