EMBL December 2008

48&cetera

EMBL-EBI goes to WestminsterEMBL-EBI Director Janet Thornton and group leader Ewan Birney were among experts invited to giveevidence to the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee in London on 5 November. Thecommittee was gathering evidence on genomic medicine with a view to determining the feasibility oflinking genomic and medical data for future healthcare. In the UK, the business of Parliament takes placein two chambers, the House of Lords and the House of Commons; the House of Lords Select Committeesinvestigate issues relating to Europe, science and technology, economics and the constitution. page 2

33 55 99Next leg of EMBLHamburg’s globaldomination: India!

Can yourimages makeyou famous?

The woman who wasn’t there

Newsletter of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

From the sistersciences: AChristmas mystery

After six years at the helm the AlumniAssociation’s much-loved Chair, AngusLamond, has relinquished his seat. Readhis tips on how to cope after leavingEMBL – juggling helps, apparently –inside. page 10

Tree of life to form centrepiece of museum exhibitThe world’s largest technological museum, the Deutsches Museum in Munich, will use the Bork group’s‘tree of life’ – a summary of all the knowledge available about the genealogy of life on earth, also knownas phylogenesis – as part of a new permanent exhibition due to open next year. The museum, whichattracts about 1.3 million visitors per year, is currently in the process of incorporating the genealogicaltree into an interactive display in an new installation exploring nano- and biotechnology in its ZentrumNeue Technologien (ZNT). page 5

Mission impossible: EMBL’s new advances in NMR The new Bruker 800 MHz spectrometer in the new nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) building atEMBL Heidelberg brings the institute’s technology in the field up-to-date. “Having a 200 MHz biggermachine is not just a 20% improvement – it’s the difference between being able to see something andsimply not being able to see it,” explains group leader Teresa Carlomagno. In an interview, she and NMRFacility Manager Bernd Simon explain the advantages of NMR as a structural biology method – and theins and outs of looking after such an important piece of equipment. page 6

Angus steps downHeLa cells have helped researchers develop the poliovaccine and uncover the secrets of cancer and viruses;they’ve led to important advances like stem cell research,gene mapping, cloning and in vitro fertilisation. Even ifyou’ve used HeLa yourself in your research, you proba-bly haven’t given much thought to their origin – andeven if you have, you can be forgiven for getting it wrong.In one of the last of this year’s Science and Society forumlectures, freelance science writer Rebecca Skloot set therecord straight about the true – and shocking – origin ofthe cell line. page 7

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 2

EMBL-EBI goes to Westminster!

You may think you’ve got a lot of cells –but those of the microorganisms living

on and in your body outnumber yours ten toone! Living with such communities has a biginfluence on the host’s development, physi-ology, immunity and nutrition, among otherthings, but the effects of this lifelong coexis-tence have remained largely undocumented– until now.October saw the launch in Heidelberg of

the International Human MicrobiomeConsortium (IHMC), which will enableresearchers to sequence and characterise therole of the human microbiome – the collectivegenomes of all microorganisms living in or onthe human body – in health and disease.Data generated by IHMC projects will be

made freely available to the global scientificcommunity through EMBL and the US-

based National Institutes of Health (NIH)Human Microbiome Project Data Analysisand Coordination Center. They will also bedistributed to other public databases, includ-ing those hosted at EMBL-EBI and theNational Center for BiotechnologyInformation, USA.

Research organisations from all nationssupporting similar research efforts are invit-ed to become participants, and contributorsalready include Australia’s CommonwealthScientific and Industrial ResearchOrganization, the Canadian Institute ofHealth Research and Genome, China’sMinistry of Science and Technology, theEuropean Commission and the NIH. Eachparticipating research group plans to focuson describing different body sites and dis-eases, while the US and EC will also con-tribute to a reference set of completely

sequenced microbial genomes. In a related move, leaders from the NIH

and the EC recently agreed to combine thedata from the NIH’s Human MicrobiomeProject and the EC’s Metagenomics of theHuman Intestinal Tract (MetaHIT) project.This will contribute an initial set of micro-bial genomes to the IHMC’s internationaleffort.“This global initiative will allow us to

explore unknown territories,” says PeerBork, joint coordinator of EMBL’s Structuraland Computational Biology Unit, who is incharge of data coordination and analysis forMetaHIT. “Understanding the contributionof microbes to our bodies will have wide-ranging impacts on medicine, pharmacolo-gy, nutrition science and many other disci-plines.”

Global effort to investigate role of microbes in health and disease

Got twenty minutes to spare betweenexperiments? Use the time to completeEMBL’s online administration survey andmake your opinion heard.The survey, which is provided by expert

consultants at Bristol University, has beendesigned to gather your views about theefficiency and effectiveness of the person-nel, finance, payroll, recruitment and pur-chase departments. It will be live for fourweeks in the new year and is totally anony-mous – the only personal information youare asked to provide is your EMBL location.The results of the survey will be publishedearly in 2009.The website is already online with some

information and FAQs, and the surveyitself will be live from 6 January until 3February 2009. Check it out atwww.embl.org/staffonly/survey.

EMBL-EBI Director Janet Thornton andgroup leader Ewan Birney were among

experts invited to give evidence to the House ofLords’ Science and Technology Committee inLondon on 5 November. The business of Parliament in the UK takes

place in a two-chamber system: the House ofCommons and the House of Lords. The Houseof Lords Select Committees investigate workrelating to Europe, science and technology,economics and the constitution. The Science and Technology Committee,

which consisted of Lord Patel, Lord Colwyn,Lord Taverne, Lord Winston, Baroness Finlayof Llandaff and Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve,was gathering evidence on genomic medicinewith a view to determining the feasibility oflinking genomic and medical data for futurehealthcare. Janet and Ewan were joined as

expert witnesses by Professor AnthonyBrookes from the University of Leicester. The panel posed questions on the major

challenges of using genomic data in healthcare,particularly in terms of data management,required infrastructure and the training of sci-entists and healthcare professionals. All threewitnesses emphasised the need to integratebioinformatics resources with biomedical data,requiring the development of a strong infra-structure for the emerging field of biomedicalinformatics. The ELIXIR project (see article onpage 8) was also discussed as an illustration ofthe challenge of maintaining Europe’s biologi-cal data resources in the face of a massiveinflux of new data from initiatives such as the1000 Genomes Project. The main conclusion of the session was that

there was important work to be done in estab-

lishing the mechanisms needed to make clini-cal use of genomic information in the future. Janet, Ewan and Anthony’s session followed

evidence on the latest advances in DNAsequencing technology, which involved theWellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s Dr RichardDurbin as an expert, as well as representativesfrom Illumina, Oxford Nanopore Technologiesand Applied Biosystems.

– Louisa Wright

Janet and Ewan called upon as expert witnesses by House of Lords Select Committee

L-r: Ewan Birney,Richard Durbin(Wellcome TrustSanger Institute),Janet Thornton, GeoffSmith (Illumina),Anthony Brookes(University ofLeicester) and CliveBrown (OxfordNanoporeTechnologies) outsideParliament

Have your say

Photo: Louisa W

right

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 3

More than 200 attendees – including EMBL’snew intake of students and visitors from as farafield as India and Argentina – learnt about theimmeasurable number of decisions made everysecond by biological systems at the 10th EMBLPhD Student Symposium on 23-25 October. Big names in molecular biology, neuro-

science, population research and cell biologycontributed lectures to the programme of talks,panel discussions and poster sessions at‘Decision making in Biology – Nature at thecrossroads’ at EMBL Heidelberg. Highlightsincluded Nobel Laureate Tim Hunt’s presenta-tion, ‘Getting in and out of mitosis’, and SusanGreenfield talking about the neuroscience ofconsciousness.This year’s proceedings kicked off with an

opening lecture in German by Stefan Schusterfrom the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg,‘Decision Making: kleine Fische, große

Entscheidungen’, which was held downtown atHeidelberg university. The programme alsoincluded the presentation of the 2008EMBO/EMBL Science Writing Prize to winnerBhupesh Kumar Prusty.

“One great thing about the symposium isthat it was always very interactive,” says Judith

Zaugg, one of the organisingcommittee.* “We started with asession on the topic of themind, so that threw up lots offood for thought and areas fordiscussion at the very begin-ning of the symposium.Stimulated by that, we hadmany discussions during theother sessions as well.”Particularly successful was

the ‘meet the speakers’ dinner,which allowed plenty of oppor-tunity for the young researchersto chat face-to-face with theleading scientists. “It was great

that Tim Hunt could stay for the duration ofthe symposium and lots of people got to meethim,” comments Judith, who’s from theLuscombe group at EMBL-EBI. “Another veryinteresting part was the panel discussion,where we talked about how to justify basicresearch to the public. That’s something thateveryone needs to think about.”

Some of the press coveragefrom the first picture release.New Scientist’s Picture of theDay (above), Die Welt(middle), Der Neue Tag (right)

Does your work at EMBL generate fabulousscientific images, like the ones from the

Stelzer group shown below? If so, a new initia-tive from the EMBL press office can help youget them onto news-stands all over the world!Newspapers and magazines are always look-

ing for a ‘picture of the week’ or an eye-catching image to draw in the readers, andEMBL’s new picture releases work a bit likepress releases. They’re sent to around 600 sci-ence journalists and several news wires, butinstead of being timed alongside the publica-tion of a paper, they’re released independently.The images are made available as high-res

tiffs or jpegs so print publications and websitescan publish them with an explanatory caption. EMBL’s first picture release was sent out on

23 October and featured Emmanuel Reynaud’spictures of human kidney cell cysts. This gainedcoverage in the German national press, among

others, and one image was chosen as ‘Picture ofthe Day’ on the New Scientist website.If you’ve got some great images – and it

doesn’t matter how old they are – submit themto the press office using the guidelines below.

• Great EMBL images are also always grate-fully received for marketing purposes, likethe postcard sets. The latest collection of six(pictured right) are available from the Officeof Information and Public Affairs at EMBLHeidelberg and can be sent out to friends,family and work associates, or can evendouble as complement slips.

Submitting an image

Pictures please! Let your images make you famous

Simply send an e-mail with your image– it should be attractive, eye-catchingor colourful – to pressoffice@embl.de.The image doesn’t need to be tied toa topical publication, but it shouldn’tbe something that you’re planning topublish in the future. If your picture issuitable, the press office will contactyou for a description and to give youdetails of the size and format required.

To be or not to be?

*Thanks to this year’s organisers: Annelie, Archana, Beat, France, Francesca, Hubert, Jacopo N., Jacopo L., Judith, Kasia, Manuela, Marco, Maria, Maria Antonietta, Martina, Mirna, Rosa, Samuel, Sara, Sarada, Steffie and Xavier!

Photo: M

aria Hond

ele

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 4

Uncovering the secrets of the deepIt’s a remarkable ability; with simple eyes con-taining only two cells, marine zooplankton cansense the direction of light and swim towardsit. Now, in a study published in the 20November issue of Nature, EMBL researchersand their collaborators have unravelled themethod behind this madness and, in doing so,discovered how the very first eyes to evolvemight have worked.The larvae of marine invertebrates – worms,

sponges and jellyfish – have the simplest ‘eye-spots’ that exist, consisting of just two cells: aphotoreceptor cell and a pigment cell. Theseeyespots resemble the ‘proto-eyes’ suggested byCharles Darwin as the first eyes to appear inanimal evolution. Studying the larvae of themarine ragworm Platynereis dumerilii, DetlevArendt’s team at EMBL Heidelberg and col-leagues from the Max Planck Institute (MPI)for Developmental Biology found that a nerveconnects the photoreceptor cell to the cells thatbring about phototaxis – the swimmingtowards light exhibited by many zooplanktonlarvae. “We assume that the first eyes in the animal

kingdom evolved for exactly this purpose.

Understanding phototaxis thus unravels thefirst steps of eye evolution,” explains Detlev. The photoreceptor cell detects light and con-

verts it into an electrical signal that travelsdown its neural projection, which makes a con-nection with a band of cells endowed with cilia.These beat to displace water and bring aboutmovement. Shining light on one eyespotchanges the beating of the cilia, and the result-ing local changes in water flow are sufficient toalter the direction of swimming.The second eyespot cell, the pigment cell,

confers the directional sensitivity to light. Itabsorbs light and casts a shadow over the pho-

The name’s Mattaj...Iain Mattaj

Good and evil came face-to-face for theultimate showdown 2,635 metres above

sea level recently when the DGs of theEIROforum gathered at ESO’s Paranal site inChile for their annual assembly... oh no, hangon, that’s not right.

The desolately beautiful astronomicalresearch site in the South American deserthas been in the news for more than one rea-son lately, the other being that it served as thelocation of the action-packed dénouement inthe newly released James Bond film,Quantum of Solace.

So when EMBL DG Iain Mattaj was thereon 9-11 November to meet with the directorsof fellow EIROforum members ESA, ESO,

Cern, EFDA, ILL and ESRF, there was plentyof sightseeing to be done in between discus-sions about the future directions of the part-nership of Europe’s seven largest intergovern-mental research organisations. ESO’s under-ground Residencia hotel, which offers work-ers and visitors much-needed respite fromthe harsh environment, was cast as the per-fect Bond villain hide-out in the film.

The group also enjoyed a trip up to ESO’snew Atacama Large Millimeter/submillime-ter Array (ALMA) telescope, which will becompleted in 2012. It stands at 5,100 metres,so everyone was all given bottled oxygen –and everyone had to use it!

toreceptor. The shape of this shadow variesaccording to the position of the light sourceand is communicated to the cilia through thesignal of the photoreceptor.“Platynereis can be considered a living fos-

sil,” says Gáspár Jékely, a former member ofArendt’s lab who now heads a group at theMPI. “It still lives in the same environment asmillions of years ago and has preserved manyancestral features. Studying the eyespots of itslarva is probably the closest we can get to figur-ing out what eyes looked like when they firstevolved.”

When you need to learn something at EMBL,you may not need to look very far for a teacher.Group leaders François Nédélec and LarsHufnagel, together with PhD studentsSebastian Streichan and Beat Rupp, took to theclassroom to teach essential software skills to15 pre- and postdocs on 13-16 October, sup-ported by EICAT and Marie Curie funding.The course was on mathematics-based soft-

ware package MATLAB, which Sebastian andBeat had taught informally in the past. As morestudents expressed an interest, they obtainedlogistic support from EICAT, who secured thesoftware licenses and arranged for fundingfrom the EU’s FP6 PhD symposium grant torun the course officially. They also procured theservices of François and Lars to run the coursewhile they acted as tutors, giving hands-on help. “MATLAB is something that would be of use

to anybody working in the Cell Biology unit,for example,” explains Sebastian. “It’s a tool fordoing numerical computations which biolo-gists can use for quantitative calculations,image analysis and modelling.”“It’s especially useful for those without much

of a background in maths who want to publishdata,” adds Beat. “It’s a much better way of pre-senting analyses in plots than Excel, for example.”“This is a good example of sharing resources

– both financial and peoples’ existing skills – toprovide training for others,” says EICATCoordinating Manager Matthias Haury. “Wesave money by having EMBL people as train-ers, and in this case it was also quite interdisci-plinary, providing complimentary skills thatcould be used in many scientific areas.”EICAT will support additional training

activities run by EMBL staff in the future, andis also hiring a new scientific training officer,who will provide further support to such initia-tives. If you’d like to share your own particularskills by running a course and would like helpfrom EICAT, contact Matthias athaury@embl.de.

Learn from your peers

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 5

Building bridgesTree of lifetakes root

Bilateral meeting

Bork group’screation to formcentrepiece of newexhibition

The world’s largest technological muse-um is to use the Bork group’s ‘tree of

life’ as the hub of a new permanent exhibi-tion. The Deutsches Museum in Munich,

which attracts about 1.3 million visitors peryear, is putting together a new interactiveinstallation exploring nano- and biotech-nology which will open at the end of nextyear in its Zentrum Neue Technologien. They approached the Bork group earlier

this year to request the use of theirgenealogical tree – a summary of all theknowledge available about the genealogy oflife on earth, also known as phylogenesis –and are currently in the process of incorpo-rating the image into an interactive display.“The center of the exhibition will be a

round visitors’ lab like a UFO containing aninstallation on synthetic life forms,”explains Life Sciences Curator Birte Hauser.

“In the middle, there will be a reconstruc-tion of the Miller apparatus, which was thefirst to produce organic molecules frominorganic under early earth conditions;underneath, EMBL’s tree of life will spreadover the table, and an audio presentationwill outline different scientific theories onthe interaction of molecules, the creation oflife and phylogenesis.”The first genealogical tree was published

by German naturalist Ernst Haeckel in1870, and was inspired by a sketch byCharles Darwin. The Bork group’s tree isone of the highest-resolution descriptionsof the evolution of all life ever made; it wasbegun in 2005 by Francesca Ciccarelli,Tobias Doerks and Christian von Mering,and automated and expanded by ChrisCreevey, who eliminated instances of hori-zontal gene transfer using an automaticdata-cleaning method.

Right: Chris Creevey,Peer Bork and TobiasDoerks with the latest

version of the tree

This year’s postdoc retreat on 10-12 October atAix-les-Bains in the Savoyen region of Francegave 51 postdocs from all EMBL sites a chanceto get together and talk science from their ownperspective. The programme of talks, discus-sions and poster sessions allowed lots of oppor-tunity for the participants to mingle with peo-ple with similar interests. Rather than includ-ing talks by external speakers, this year’s retreatfocussed on an increase in ‘connectivity’between the attendees.Besides the scientific input, a general forum

to discuss postdoc issues took place on theSunday morning. The session was started byVivian Pogenberg, who introduced theEuropean Charter of Researchers – a set ofprinciples and recommendations of good prac-tice for researchers, employers and funders ofresearchers issued by the EuropeanCommission – and discussed the current statusof postdocs at EMBL. Other topics of interestwhich came to light during the forum includ-ing taxes on fellowships, the pension scheme,dependants’ allowances and the mentorshipprogramme for new postdocs at EMBL. Since postdocs come and go independently

without the support of an organisational struc-ture like the PhD programme, events such asthe retreat are even more important and bene-ficial. It was also agreed that generating morepublicity for the Postdoc Association andimproving the website could encourage bothnewcomers and existing postdocs to get takepart in events such as the wine and cheese ses-sions and have more contact with others. Ifyou’d like to get involved in the association,please contact us via the webpage atwww.embl.org/training/postdocs/association.html. – Gregor Reither

EMBL Hamburg team leaderManfred Weiss (left) and groupleader Paul Tucker (right)embracing Rajasthani tradition inPune, India, last month for anEMBO World Lecture Course onMacromolecular Crystallography.Together with EMBL Hamburg staffscientist Santosh Panjikar andcolleagues from India’s NationalChemical Laboratory, Manfred andPaul organised the course topresent recent methodologicaldevelopments in crystallisation,data collection, structuredetermination and functionprediction to 79 young participantsfrom India and elsewhere. EMBO’sWorld Lecture Courses cater forstudents at an early career stage byproviding up-to-date information ona range of topics, as well asopportunities to meet experts andmake contact with fellow scientistsfrom other geographical areas.

When in India...

Members of the EMBL Grenoble andHamburg outstations came together fortheir 5th annual bilateral meeting inHamburg on October 30-31. Topicsranged from hardware and software devel-opments for synchrotron beamlines toautomatic and high-throughput samplehandling. As in the past, project teamswere formed for LIMS, detectors andframeworks for beamline controls to coor-dinate efforts on both sites and form thefoundation for future collaborations.

“This meeting gets people together dur-ing the developmental stages of newinstrumentation and technologies, whichcan be really useful,” commented groupleader Thomas Schneider.

– Jochen Müller-Dieckmann

Photo: C

hristine Panagiotid

is

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 6

Mission impossible: EMBL’s new advances in NMR Walking into the heart of the new nuclear

magnetic resonance (NMR) facility atEMBL Heidelberg is like stepping into a facto-ry. There’s the chugging of some huge, cease-less engine; there’s a constant hum and a rhyth-mic beeping noise – and in the middle of thisspectrometry room, several metres apart, standtwo large metal canisters resembling, if any-thing, parts of space rockets. “It’s actually because of the older 600 MHz

magnet that we have so much space betweenthem,” explains Teresa Carlomagno, NMR spe-cialist and group leader at EMBL for the pastyear. “Unlike the new 800 MHz one, it doesn’thave a built-in shield mechanism. If you gobeyond here” – she indicates a barrier – “it’llmess your wristwatch up.”The sparkling new Bruker 800 MHz spec-

trometer is EMBL’s recent acquisition, whoseconvoluted arrival disrupted the Kinderhausparty on 26 September and which bringsEMBL’s NMR technology up-to-date. “It’s notthe strongest one in existence,” admits Teresa,“but having a 200 MHz bigger machine is notjust a 20% improvement, for example – it’s thedifference between being able to see somethingand simply not being able to see it.”NMR is a technique with which scientists get

information on biomolecules at the atomic level.Looking – or more accurately, listening – to thetransition between two energy states in thenuclei of a protein, RNA or complex after theyare perturbed in the strong magnetic field of thespectrometer, researchers can get an idea of thelocal environment of each nuclei. This informa-tion can then be used to derive details about theoverall structure, determine where compoundsmay bind, or to get an idea of how rigid or flex-ible different parts of the molecule are.“NMR uses samples in solution, and with

the higher magnetic field we can look at moredilute samples, which means we can look atbigger complexes,” says Teresa. “Also, in NMRyou have signals coming from every single pro-ton or carbon and nitrogen atom in the mole-cule. At a higher field, these signals are betterdispersed and stronger.”

As a technique, NMR offers much to EMBL’smove towards a systems biology approach.“NMR has traditionally been thought of as acompetitor to crystallography, but it’s actually acomplementary technique in a pool of otherstructural biology methods,” explains Teresa.“It concentrates on things you can only see insolution, like dynamic complexes, unfoldedproteins, weak intermolecular interactions or

low populated transition states. In this respectNMR allows us to see the invisible. “Recent developments in NMR technologies

make it possible to see how several moleculestalk to each other in bigger complexes. WithNMR we can even see parts of the ribosome,provided they have a certain degree of mobility.”The new, stronger magnet demands a differ-

ent approach as far as maintenance is con-cerned. “We need an absolutely stable, homog-

enous field, and the stability depends onsuperconductivity, meaning we generate themagnet using a coil which has no resistanceand therefore generates no heat,” explainsBernd Simon, NMR Facility Manager. “Up to700 MHz, the superconductivity is achieved byputting the coil in a liquid helium bath, butwith more MHz than that you have to make thesurrounding liquid even colder. So this newone is refrigerated so that the coil is at a tem-perature of 2 kelvin (-271.15º centigrade).”What happens if the temperature rises? “The

cooling pump phones us at home if there’s aproblem,” smiles Bernd. “We have a window ofan hour or two to react, but if there’s a ‘quench’when the helium escapes because the coil startsto produce heat, it takes a week or two torecharge the magnet again.”That happened when the new spectrometer

arrived – not an uncommon occurrence – butsince then the machine has been running with-out a hitch. “Big magnets really allow us to lookat big things,” concludes Teresa. “As the size ofthe molecule or the complex we look at by NMRincreases, we have to compromise with resolu-tion. However, in these cases, we can comple-ment NMR – and this is particularly the case atEMBL, with its integrated approach – with othertechniques such as small angle scattering or EMmeasurements to build the bigger picture.”

“Having a 200 MHz biggermachine is the differencebetween being able to seesomething and simply not

being able to see it” – Teresa Carlomagno

The new spectrometer arrives at EMBL

The Winter Council meeting took place inHinxton on 25 November. These are themain results:

• A celebration of the 10th anniversary ofEMBL Monterotondo is planned for June.

• The next EMBL programme – the guide-lines on which EMBL runs on a 5-yearbasis – will cover the period 2012 to 2016and development of this will begin in 2009at the faculty retreat.

• Marcus Heisler has been hired to lead thefirst Australian group in the developmentprogramme agreed with Australia’s associ-ate membership.

• The new Chair of SAC will be WernerKühlbrandt, succeeding Paul Nurse.

• Council approved the following recom-mendations by the working group onterms and conditions of employment:

– introduce fellows into the EMBL socialsecurity system. The necessary fundingwill be included in the next indicative

scheme commencing 2012;

– increase the annual maximum educa-tion grant;

– introduce changes in compensation forovertime for personnel in grades 1-6 ;

– lengthen the notice period for staffmembers to accept contract extensionsto at least six months.

• The opening ceremony for the AdvancedTraining Centre has been scheduled for 11March 2010.

Winter Council decisions

Photo: D

avood Bakhtiari

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 7

The woman who wasn’t there

Dean around the world and back

HeLa – the first human cell line ever grownin culture – is one of the most widely-

used and important laboratory tools in medi-cine and research. HeLa cells have helpedresearchers develop the polio vaccine anduncover the secrets of cancer and viruses;they’ve led to important advances like stem cellresearch, gene mapping, cloning and in vitrofertilisation. Sent to labs in their billions allaround the world – and beyond – HeLa cellshave been blown up at nuclear test sites andflown in space shuttle missions.Even if you’ve used HeLa yourself in your

research, you probably haven’t given muchthought to their origin – and even if you have,you can be forgiven for getting it wrong. Asrecently as 1994, the McGraw-Hill Dictionaryof Scientific and Technical Terms was stilldescribing HeLa cells as ‘human cancer cellsmaintained in tissue culture...originallyexcised from the cervical carcinoma of apatient named Helen Lane’.

The truth is, there never was a Helen Lane.The ‘He’ and ‘La’ of the name actually standsfor Henrietta Lacks, a housewife fromBaltimore and mother of five children, whodied from that same cancer in 1951 at the ageof just 31. But the story here isn’t just about apseudonym or a cover-up.Rebecca Skloot, a freelance science writer

based in Memphis, Tennessee, visited EMBLHeidelberg on 24 November to give a Scienceand Society forum lecture, ‘The Immortal Lifeof Henrietta Lacks’, which is also the title of herforthcoming book. “Although Henrietta’s cellsdid wonders for science, they had troublingconsequences for her family,” explains Rebecca,who, since her early days as a biomedical stu-dent planning to become veterinary scientist,has been fascinated by the story. “Her husband,

an impoverished tobacco farmer with a thirdgrade education who struggled to afford hous-ing and healthcare, didn’t learn about the cellsuntil 25 years after Henrietta's death.”That itself was only due to a twist of fate. The

cells had been taken without Henrietta or herhusband’s knowledge or consent – not unusualin those days – but it wasn’t until 1974 that sus-picion grew that they might be infiltrating theworld’s stock of other cell cultures. Researchersapproached the Lacks family for blood and tis-sue samples – anything to find genetic markersto help identify the cells. For a family with a third grade education,

this sudden news that their mother’s cells werealive in a lab – that ‘she’, 25 years dead, wasbeing tested, manipulated, blown up and sentinto space – was bewildering. Even with theunderstanding that the researchers were test-ing for hereditary material was confusing.“Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s youngest daugh-ter, thought she’d get a phone call telling herwhether she was going to live or die. She neverheard back from the researchers and soon hadthe first of what would become several break-downs,” says Rebecca.The story raises some big questions about

informed consent and patient confidentiality.“It’s often held up as an example of scientistsacting unethically – they didn’t ask her, andthen they sold the cells and got rich on them.But it’s not that simple. What the scientists didwasn’t maliciously intended at all, but it wasn’tjust a couple of cells; to somebody, that wastheir mother.”Rebecca hopes that the sale of her book will

eventually enable a scholarship fund to be setup in Henrietta’s name. “Members of the Lacksfamily feel they’ve been passed over in thestory. They know their mother’s cells started amedical revolution and are now bought andsold around the world, but they’re pretty surethat someone, somewhere, has profited fromtheir mother’s death – and it’s not them.”

Dean of Graduate Studies Helke Hillebrand hasbeen busy spreading the word about the EMBLInternational PhD Programme.On 27-29 October, Helke travelled to

Nicaragua’s capital Managua to attend the 1stinternational workshop of the Nicaraguan-Finnish Agro-Biotechnology Project(NIFAPRO), where she gave a talk about theEIPP and structures implemented in order tosustain strategies for higher educational train-ing. NIFAPRO was founded in 2007 to buildcapacity in agrobiotechnology for the country,increasing agricultural productivity and food

safety, facilitating economic development inrural areas and reducing poverty.

“Participants came from all over the world andeveryone was very interested in learning aboutand discussing concepts for structured graduateeducation. Many had already heard of EMBL’sPhD programme and were interested to find outhow it works,” she says. “Let’s see if we now get afew great applications from Latin America.”

On November 24-27, Helke also gave a talk17th symposium of the International ScientificCentre for Fertilizers in Cairo, Egypt.

“They're pretty sure that someone,somewhere, has profited from

their mother's death” – Rebecca Skloot

Millions of researchers useHeLa cells without giving athought to their true origin.Writer Rebecca Skloot visitedEMBL to set the record straight

Keep your refs in checkThe more papers you publish, the better,right? Well, the downside is that the moreyou have, the more complicated itbecomes to organise your references.That’s where, for many people, Endnote(www.adeptscience.co.uk/products/refman/endnote) comes in; it’s a valuablereference tool which allows you to find,organise and transform references, bibli-ographies and PDFs with ease, as well asimporting and exporting them into Word. Tobias Sack at EMBL Heidelberg’s

Szilárd Library runs well-receivedEndnote courses for EMBL staff. Thecourse is mainly aimed at beginners andstarts by introducing the main features,but those of you who already use it maybenefit too, as Tobias’ training sessionscover some more specialist applicationsincluding integrated online searches, PDFand reference import, CWYW, amendingand creating individual displays and bib-liographies, to name just a few.If you’re interested, send an e-mail

(sack@embl.de) or drop into the libraryoffice. Training can also be made availableto outstation staff.

Photo: C

hristine Panagiotid

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EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 8

science&society

Pre- and postdocs! Do you need to design anantibody, but don’t know where to start? Orperhaps you do know, and you know too thatit’ll take an endless slog through websites tochoose the right tools, pinpoint the analysisyou need and find all the related annotations? Postdoc Niall Haslam from EMBL

Heidelberg’s Gibson Team has made thewhole process less painful with a new onlineresource, http://epic.embl.de. In a simple,question-by-question format, EpiC collatesand presents a structure–function summaryof your protein to help you design antibodiesappropriate to your experiments. All youneed is your protein sequence or UniProt IDand an idea of the type of experiment youwant to do, and EpiC – an initiative of theFP6-funded ProteomeBinders project – willdo the rest.“It’s quite hard for wetlab researchers to

stay abreast of the latest tools and analysis

techniques they need for making antibodies,”says Niall. “The methods are out there, but atthe moment you have to search multipleremote servers to find what you need. EpiCautomates this, doing most of the decisionmaking for you, which can be essential ifyou’re new to all this.”

EpiC chooses the most appropriate tool –and automatically the most up-to-date version– and collects and displays the results andannotation information by searching throughresources across Europe, from Split toStockholm via the EBI. EpiC gets the data, leav-ing you to concentrate on the interpretation!

Though EpiC is already up and running,development is ongoing and Niall is keen toreceive feedback from users to help him con-tinue refining the service. Give it a try athttp://epic.embl.de, and e-mail Niall athaslam@embl.de if you have any suggestions.

A service of EpiC proportions

All systems goThe last-minute loss of a keynote speaker at thisyear’s EMBL/EMBO Science and SocietyConference did nothing to detract from theexcellent programme on ‘Systems and SyntheticBiology: Scientific and Social Implications’ atEMBL Heidelberg on 7-8 November.One highlight of the systems biology part was

the talk by Leroy Hood of the Institute forSystems Biology in the USA, who first coinedthe term in the 1980s. The shoes of anotherfounding father of systems biology, Denis Noble,were amply filled by other experts includingTom Kirkwood of the UK’s Centre for SystemsBiology of Aging. Synthetic biology was alsorepresented by prominent figures such as DoronLancet from the Weizmann Institute and DavidDeamer of the University of California. The lectures and panel discussions moved

from the relatively new and very ‘hot’ conceptof systems biology to synthetic methods viaethical implications and governmental policy,with opinions from all sides being heard, be itscientific, societal or philosophical.“It’s fantastically important that we look at

these problems with a broader perspective,which is why conferences like these are invalu-able,” commented Tom Kirkwood, who chal-lenged the audience that the main issue our soci-ety faces is the impact of an aging population. “I’ve been rewriting my lecture notes, which

is always the sign of an excellent conference,”said the University of Edinburgh’s Joyce Tait asshe took to the stage to talk about the gover-nance of synthetic biology.

EMBL-EBI held its second Masters Open Dayof the year on 3 November, timed in order tomore effectively support recruitment for theEMBL International PhD Programme. Forty bioinformatics-related Masters stu-

dents and supervisors spent the day learningabout the EBI and sampling some of our serv-ices and research. A variety of lectures provid-ed an overview of our activities, an introduc-tion to the EIPP and an insight into ourresearch. A lunchtime demonstration session,involving ten of the EBI’s main bioinformaticsresources, gave the students the opportunity toexplore the databases and tools of most rele-vance to their work and to question theexperts. The next Masters Open Day will be held at

the EBI on 19 March 2009. If you’re involved inteaching bioinformatics Masters students andwould like them to be added to the mailing list,email training@ebi.ac.uk. – Louisa Wright

Europe’s bioinformatics communitymeets to review progressThe EC-funded ELIXIR project (EuropeanLife-Science Infrastructure for BiologicalInformation) held its second stakeholdermeeting at the Wellcome Trust GenomeCampus, Hinxton, on 18 November. 143delegates from 26 countries came togetherto hear about the progress made and decidethe project’s next steps. ELIXIR aims toestablish a sustainably funded infrastructurefor biological information in Europe, to sup-port innovation in life science research,knowledge generation and its translation tomedicine, the environment, the bio-indus-tries and society. The meeting began with presentations on

each of the other ESFRI biomedical scienceprojects, spanning structural biology,biobanking, mouse models, translationalmedicine and clinical research. As each ofthese infrastructures will generate enor-mous amounts of data, it is important thatELIXIR establishes links with them so thatdifferent types of data can be shared andintegrated in the future.These were followed by an overview of

the progress made by ELIXIR to date.EMBL-EBI Director Janet Thornton high-lighted the contacts made with scientists inthe member states and with national fund-ing agencies, and input that has been gath-ered to shape the eventual structure ofELIXIR. “The challenge of ELIXIR is tocombine existing data resources to create an

infrastructure that is still sensitive to nation-al research strategies and differences infunding mechanisms. The scope of ELIXIRneeds to be far-reaching but also practical,”she said. The stakeholder meeting coincides with

the release of a short DVD documentarywhere Janet presents the need for ELIXIR. Ifyou are able to distribute these DVDs toyour national funding contacts, please con-tact ELIXIR administrator Holly Edwards(holly.edwards@ebi.ac.uk).

– Louisa Wright

EMBL-EBI’s Masters OpenDay goes bi-annual

Eero Vuorio of the University of Turku,former EMBL council chair andrepresentative of the Biobanking andBiomolecular Resources ResearchInfrastructure, and Janet Thornton

Photo: E

rik Bongcam

-Rud

loff

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 9

fromthesistersciences

It’s that time of year again! Pondering the traditions of Yuletide, weasked a European Space Agency expert to speculate about what the

star of Bethlehem could have been

A Christmas mystery

‘Behold, there came wise men from the eastto Jerusalem. Saying, Where is he that is

born King of the Jews? For we have seen hisstar in the east, and are come to worship him.’(Matthew 2:i-ii). Science can’t prove that theChristmas star ever existed, but it can help usinvestigate what it might have been if it did.Could something unusual have appeared inthe night sky 2,000 years ago? Mark Kidger, an astronomer at the

European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid,has been pondering this question. He’s theauthor of two books, Astronomical Enigmas:Life on Mars, the Star of Bethlehem, and OtherMilky Way Mysteries, and CosmologicalEnigmas.

Venus“If you take a look at the sky shortly after

sunset on Christmas Eve this year and facesouth-west, you will see two brilliant ‘stars’: afaint one low above the horizon, and a brighterone higher up,” explains Mark. “These areactually the planets Jupiter and the stunninglybrilliant Venus.” Could this have been what theMagi saw?

Not VenusIt’s unlikely, as Mark explains. “The Magiwould have descended from a long line of sky-watchers who for centuries had studied themovements of stars and planets. They wouldhave been familiar with Venus in particularand could not conceivably have mistaken it fora new star.”Many other theories have been proposed

over the years. The most enduring ones havebeen a stellar explosion (a nova or supernova),an unusual planetary configuration or a comet.How can we eliminate impossibilities or decidewhich theory is most probable?

Crap at maths“A good starting point is to calculate when thestar appeared,” says Mark. “The birth of Christ

has actually been dated to 5 or 6 BC accordingto the death of King Herod, which took placeone or two years later after a lunar eclipse on13-14 March in 4 BC. This date agrees with theone deduced by the monk Dionysius Exiguusin 525 AD, who counted back through thereigns of Roman emperors to reach 25December 1 AD; his calendar, though, jumpedfrom 1 BC to 1 AD, missing the year zero, andhe also forgot to include the four years duringwhich Augustus Caesar reigned under thename of Octavian.”

Comet Astronomers and historians have spent manyyears examining ancient records to see if anyphenomenon was observed around 5 BC.Babylonian astronomical records are only frag-mentary, but many Chinese observations ofeclipses, meteor showers, sunspots, comets,novae and supernovae still exist, and wereoften highly detailed; Halley’s Comet was care-fully recorded when it appeared, but that wasin the autumn of 12 BC, and nothing that theChinese observed for three hundred yearsaround the date of the Nativity is spectacularenough to have been a supernova – the deathof a massive star – which leaves a glowingcloud of expanding dust and gas, called a neb-ula, which would still be visible today.

Better at planets Unlike the Chinese, though, the Babyloniansrecorded planets and their configurations. ABabylonian chronicle in the British Museum inLondon shows a month-by-month record ofthe positions of the planets in 7 BC and liststwo very special phenomena: a triple conjunc-tion and a planetary massing.“A conjunction occurs when two planets,

moving at different speeds, come close togeth-er for a few nights,” explains Mark. “A tripleconjunction is when two planets approach andpass each other three times over a period ofseveral months. Every year there are abouttwenty normal conjunctions, but a triple con-junction only happens about once every 150years.”

SignThe Babylonian diary describes a triple con-junction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constella-tion of Pisces that took place between May and

November in 7 BC. “Visually, it would not havebeen much of a spectacle, but to an astrologer,it would have been rich in meaning: the planetof kings (Jupiter) met the bringer of change(Saturn),” says Mark. “As 7 BC ended, Mars(the planet of war) also moved into the sameconstellation. By February 6 BC, Mars, Jupiterand Saturn formed a tight grouping – a plane-tary massing. “For Babylonian priest-astrologers, or Magi,

the meaning of this could not have been clear-er: a new king would be born who would over-throw the old order and bring war to the HolyLand. They were just waiting for a final, defin-itive sign as to when this would happen.”

ChineseThat’s where the Chinese chroniclers can helpagain. According to them, in March and Aprilof 5 BC, an object appeared close to the starsAlpha and Beta Capricornii. “It was visible formore than 10 weeks in permanently cloudyskies, suggesting that it must have been a par-ticularly bright object,” explains Mark. “Thehuman eye makes very bright stars appear tohave rays coming out of them so that theyseem large and cometary – and, indeed, theChinese called it a ‘hui-hsing’, a comet orsupernova. But with a fixed position overweeks or months, and no trace of a correspon-ding supernova in the sky today, they werealmost certainly reporting an extremely brightnova, or new star.”

GasA nova is actually pair of old stars, the smallerof which is sucking gas off the larger one. Asthe gas accumulates on the surface of the smallstar it gets hotter and hotter, until there is aviolent explosion and the excess gas is blownoff into space. The sudden ‘birth’ of a brilliantnew star blazing in the East in the pre-dawnsky would have told the Magi that the Messiahwhom they sought had, finally, been born.

Mince pieWhile we can’t prove that this bright nova wasthe Star of Bethlehem, the time that it appearedand the position in the sky make it plausible –if that’s what you like to believe, anyway. We’reoff for a mince pie and a large glass of brandybutter...

News from the Alumni Association www.embl.org/alumni

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 10

In his last board meeting in November,Angus Lamond stepped down after six

years as Alumni Association Chair. “If EMBLis paradise, you could say that leaving it ishell. That makes me, as Chair, Satan,” heonce joked. This title will now go to Angus’ successor,

Giulio Superti-Furga who was elected Chairwith Niovi Santama as Deputy Chair in thelast meeting. Angus wished them and theboard good luck in taking the associationforward in future. “It was a privilege for meto have had this opportunity, and manythanks to everyone who helped with ouractivities over the past years,” he concluded. Under Angus’ leadership, the association

has grown to 1,413 members with 6 activelocal chapters. He will be remembered notonly for everything he has done for the associ-ation, but also for his sense of fun, which madethe board meetings so lively and entertaining.“My motto has always been that science

should be fun!” says Angus, who started atEMBL at the tender age of 27 as a group

leader and later senior scientist in theGene Expression unit. “EMBL showedme that it was possible to stick to this phi-losophy and still be (relatively) success-ful.” It’s a motto that Angus has retained to-

date, 13 years after leaving EMBL. His lab,in the new research centre which heestablished at Dundee University, attractsco-workers from all over the world.Indeed, Angus notes that “my laboratoryis currently even more international thanit was at EMBL!”Their Lamondlab.com website won the

Judge’s Choice Award in The Scientist’s 2007Laboratory Website Awards, and is wellworth a visit. Here you’ll find not only infor-mation on ‘The Science’, but also ‘The Fun’,as well as footage of Angus indulging in hishobby – juggling!Angus’ advice to people leaving EMBL?

“Remember to really enjoy what you aredoing (science should be fun!) and value andrespect your colleagues. Finally, surround

yourself with people who are much more tal-ented than you are, and feel no shame in tak-ing vicarious credit for their abilities! “Last but not least, remember to join the

Alumni Association, and keep in touch.”Iain Mattaj and Matthias Hentze thanked

Angus at the board dinner for his fantasticwork in running the Association. Read Angus’ account of ‘Life after EMBL’ on

the alumni wiki, www.embl.org/alumni/wiki.– Mehrnoosh Rayner

Juggling science and fun

Alumni facts...EMBL’ s largest bodyof alumni were in Cell

Biology (740).

An exciting part of the Alumni Associationboard meeting on 3 November was the selec-tion of the John Kendrew Award winner2009. The already demanding task of com-paring the achievements of scientists fromdifferent fields was made even more difficultby the outstanding quality of the candidates. The board selected Julius Brennecke, a for-

mer predoc in Developmental Biology from2001-2006, who’s now a postdoc at the ColdSpring Harbor Laboratory in the USA, for hisrevolutionary contributions to RNA silenc-ing. Julius and his colleagues were the first touse computational methods to identifymicroRNA-regulated mRNAs successfully; toidentify the biological logic of microRNA

regulation of gene expression including theidentification of physiological miRNA tar-gets; to implicate microRNAs in providingrobustness and noise suppression to biologi-cal circuits; to discover the ‘ping-pong’ mech-anism for piRNA amplification; and to char-acterise the piRNA pathways as a genomic‘immune system’ and as the molecular basisof the hybrid dysgenesis phenomenon. Juliushas also taken time out for active conserva-tion biology work in the Galapagos Islandsand the Serengeti, Tanzania. Julius will take up a group leader position

at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology inVienna in January 2009. He will receive hisaward and present a public lecture describinghis work at EMBL’s lab day on 18 June.

– Giulio Superti-Furgawww.embl.org/alumni

Thank you to the 274 Alumni Associationmembers who voted in the board electionsbetween 15 August and 30 September. The

results are below. All the successful candi-dates accepted their positions and attend-ed the 12th Alumni Association boardmeeting at EMBL Heidelberg on 3November, where they elected GiulioSuperti-Furga as the new Chair and NioviSantama as Deputy Chair.

The board were delighted that AndreasJenny and Patricia Rogriguez have agreedto act as Local Chapter Organisers for theUSA and Italy respectively.

New members Continuing members

Giulio Superti-Furga Annalisa Pastore

Maria del Mar Vivanco Freddy Frischknecht

Anastasia Politou Bernard Hoflack

Anastasios Koutsos Colin Dingwall

Cedric Notredame Claudia Koch-Brandt

Niovi Santama

Treasurer Giovanni Paolella

Oscar Martin-Almendral Oddmund Bakke

Alumni Association election results

John Kendrew award 2009

Kai Simons turns 70On 10-12 November, the MPI of MolecularCell Biology and Genetics in Dresden cele-brated the 70th birthday of former EMBLCell Biology unit head Kai Simons with asymposium, ‘Principles of Cell and TissueOrganization’. The event acknowledged Kai’sscientific contribution and his political rolein promoting cell biology worldwide and insupporting young investigators in Europe.Speakers included a number of EMBL alum-ni; see www.mpi-cbg.de/rafts for details.

A bearded Angus juggling in Australia

EMBL&cetera • December 2008 • page 11

newsinbrief� Registration is now open for the EBI’s

hands-on bioinformatics training courses inearly 2009: Sequence to Genes: GenomeInformatics (16-18 March); ProgrammaticAccess to Biological Databases (27-29April); and our introductory course ‘A walkthrough EBI Bioinformatics Resources’ (11-15 May). Visit www.ebi.ac.uk/training/handson for more details and to register.

� Fourteen group leaders from EMBL-EBIgathered at Down Hall Hotel in Bishop’sStortford on 5-6 November for the institute’sfirst research group leader retreat. “EBI isgrowing steadily, with many of new groupsdoing research rather than, or in addition to,providing services,” explained Nicolas LeNovère. “Everyone enjoyed the retreat andwe’ve decided to make it a bi-annual eventin the future.”

�On 13-14 November Ava Yeo (Director ofOperations), Sally Leevers (AcademicTutor) and Erin Fortin (Research Managerfor Graduate Studies) from the LondonResearch Institute, a Cancer Research UKlaboratory, paid EMBL Heidelberg a visit to

exchange ideas about pre- and postdoctoraltraining and careers guidance. The visitorsalso had a chance to chat to EMBL postdocs.

�Other recent visits included theBettencourt-Schueller Foundation, whichaims to create a new centre for the life sci-ences and medicine in Paris and visitedEMBL to get some ideas on 17 October, andthe Swedish Research Council on 27-28October.

� EMBL’s European Learning Laboratoryfor the Life Sciences (ELLS) has been award-ed a three-year grant by the Robert BoschStiftung to become part of the foundation’s‘NaT-Working’ initiative (Networking HighSchool Students, Teachers and Scientists inthe Natural Sciences and Technology). In a

project called iNEXT – InteraktivesNetzwerk für Experimentelles Training –ELLS will work with four schools to developclassroom resources according to scienceteachers’ needs. They’ll need scientist vol-unteers to help produce wetlab, bioinfor-matics and e-learning resources, to name afew, so if you’d like to to get involved withthat or the initiative’s AmbassadorProgramme, contact Julia Willingale-Theune at willinga@embl.de.

�A scientific writing course with JaneFraser, Effective Writing in the LifeSciences, will be held at EMBL Heidelbergon 3-4 February. Register online athttp://training.embl.org/reg/index.php.

�Good news for Heidelberg non-drivers!From 14 December an express bus serviceon a trial basis will support the existing 39bus route. The buses will run betweenBismarckplatz, Bierhelderhof (EMBL) andBoxberg during the peak periods 6am–9amand 4pm–7pm, with buses available to andfrom EMBL every 30 minutes during thesetimes. The service will be revised after sixmonths – so use it or lose it!

from the Staff Association

� As outlined on page 6, the Winter Councilmeeting approved improvements to over-time rules, education and installation grants.Wording changes were also made to theremoval costs and unemployment insurancerules to make them clearer. Furthermore,the signing period for newly issued con-tracts was significantly changed. Seewww.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff/news/randrchanges.htm for full details.

� Saturday 13 December: the EMBLHeidelberg Christmas Party. Santa Clauswill be making a special appearance. Ticketscover a wonderful buffet of internationalChristmas dishes as well as entertainment

from Freddy Wonder and his band – sobring your dancing shoes!

� Saturday, 14 February: Burns Night. Getready for the Scottish party of the year – thelongest-running annual event forHeidelberg – featuring exotic whisky, bag-pipes, haggis, Scottish country dancing andmuch more.

� The Staff Association covers all categories ofstaff and has representatives at all outstations.Keep up-to-date with these and other eventsat www.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff (forEMBL pensioners, www.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff/pensioners). – Catherine Floyd

On 17 October the EMBLKinderhaus parents’ panelorganised EMBL’s first fleamarket for children’sclothes, toys andequipment. The market,which took place duringlunchtime in the marqueeoutside the main entrance,was so successful so thatthe organisers immediatelydecided to arrangeanother one in spring (dateto be confirmed). So don’tmiss your chance tospruce up the little one’ssummer outfit.

– Corinna Gorny

A life aquaticThe ELLS stand at Science Days 2008, heldon 9-11 October at the Europa-Park nearRust, Germany, really drew the crowds.With the help of EMBL postdoc Petra

Haas and six students from the Bertha-von-Suttner high school in Ettlingen, SET-Routes Programme Administrator PhilippGebhardt displayed an eyecatching pyra-mid of aquariums containing zebrafish andMedaka mutants. A huge number of thefestival’s 22,000 visitors stopped by toobserve the first stages of fish developmentin real time under the microscope.The stand also featured a life-size photo-

graphic backdrop to make visitors feel theywere standing in a real lab, and showed amovie Philipp made of some of EMBL’s lat-est findings, which included the ‘digitalembryo’ published by the Stelzer andWittbrodt labs on the first day of the event.Science Days, a major science festivalaimed at visitors of all ages, has beenattracting thousands annually since 2000.

Photo: C

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Photo: M

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events@EMBLpeople@EMBL

EMBL&cetera 47, October 2008. EMBL&cetera is published by EMBL’s Office of Information and Public Affairs, Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, e-mail: info@embl.de. Online version available at www.embl.org/newsletter. Editor: Vienna Leigh. Editorial support: Lena Raditsch, Silke Schumacher.Contributors: Anna-Lynn Wegener, Louisa Wright, Mehrnoosh Rayner, Santosh Panjikar, Michael Thompson. Photographic support: EMBL Photolab.Printed by ColorDruckLeimen.

awards&honoursEMBL Heidelberg Gene Expression group leader Maja Köhn has received the Friedrich WeygandPrize, which is awarded to one up-and-coming young scientist in bioorganic chemistry or pep-tide chemistry every year, from the Max Bergmann Circle. Maja gave her prize lecture,‘Herstellungsstrategien und Applikationen von Peptid- und Wirkstoff-Arrays’ and received theaward at the 29th Max-Bergmann-Konferenz in Grindelwald, Switzerland at the beginning ofOctober.Former EMBL DG Fotis C. Kafatos, now Chair of Immunogenomics at Imperial College and firstPresident of the European Research Council, has been awarded a special lifetime achievementprize by the Louis-Jeantet Foundation, a Swiss-based organisation that provides funding andmajor prizes for biomedical research. It recognises his major contributions to the development ofEuropean biomedical research as well as his exceptional research into the biology of theAnopheles mosquito, the carrier of the malaria parasite Plasmodium. He received the award at aceremony in Geneva on 9 October.On 24 October at a ceremony at the Bode Museum in Berlin, joint head of EMBL Heidelberg’sStructural and Computational Biology unit Peer Bork was one of three scientists to receive aMentoring in Science award from Nature. These awards focus on a specific country each year, andspeakers at the ceremony included Dr. Annette Schavan, the Federal Minister of Education andResearch for Germany. Peer, who won the Mid-career Achievement Award, was nominated for“his exceptional leadership ability and enthusiastic and responsible way of mentoring,” accordingto the judges.

15 December EMBL HeidelbergScience and Society: "Seeing Science": AlyssaA. Goodman, Harvard University

16 December EMBL HeidelbergExternal speaker: Small RNA pathways inthe germline. Alexei Aravin, CSH

16 December EMBL HeidelbergExternal speaker: Collective patterns in biol-ogy: Synchrony dynamics in the segmenta-tion clock as revealed by quantitative geneperturbation. Ingmar Riedel-Kruse, CIT

17 December EMBL HeidelbergExternal speaker: Zebrafish visual systemdevelopment and function: imaging studies.Filippo Del Bene, UCSF

19 December EMBL MonterotondoScience and Society: Neural Plasticity andConsciousness: why you are not your brain.Alva Noe, University of Berkeley

15-16 January Atlantic Hotel, HeidelbergChemical biology retreat

19-22 January EMBL-EBICourse: Transcriptomics Resources and DataAnalysis

12-13 February EMBL MonterotondoHeads of Units/Senior Scientists Meeting

For more details about these events and more,visit www.embl.org/events.

Antje Seeck is returning to EMBL Heidelberg’s Courses andConferences Office after her maternity leave as its new MarketingOfficer. In this newly-created role, she will promote the scientific con-ferences, workshops and courses held at EMBL and develop a market-ing strategy to maximise the Advanced Training Centre’s capacity util-isation. Antje studied International Business at Maastricht Universityand held several marketing positions in organisations including theGerman Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Siemens, beforecoming to EMBL.

New team leader John Overington will oversee the development oflarge-scale medicinal chemistry databases at EMBL-EBI. He studiedchemistry at the University of Bath, and after a PhD at BirkbeckCollege and a postdoc at Cancer Research UK he joined Pfizer, wherehe established the structural biology group and integrated bioinfor-matics analysis into new target research. In 2000, John joinedInpharmatica, where he worked on database and software applicationdevelopment, and joins the EBI following the transfer of the Galapagosdatabase to the public domain earlier this year.

EMBL Heidelberg’s Oktoberfeston 11 October included musicfrom the city’s Blasmusik Band,lots of food and drink andprizes for the teams thatexcelled in the traditionalBavarian games, whichincluded ‘Baumstamm Nageln’.This bizarre pastime involveshammering nails into a treetrunk, a task at which EMBO’sKim Krynauw and LiselottMaidment and guest JamieLitchfield proved expert.

Great, we’ve wonmore beer!

Upcoming free courses in the EMBL Non-Scientific Training and DevelopmentProgramme include:

Course Date

PILOT Project management II 14 Jan (EBI)

Interviewing Skills 20 Jan (HD)

Conflict Management 21 Jan (EBI)

Illustrator Introduction 21 Jan (EBI)

Photoshop Basics 21-22 Jan (HD)

Dealing with stress and pressure 22 Jan (HD)

Access Beginners 3-4 Feb (HD)

Understanding personality: MBTI 12 Feb (EBI)

Illustrator 16-17 Feb (HD)

Advanced Presentation Skills 16-17 Feb (HH)

Effective Team Leader – part 1 17-18 Feb (HD)

Visit www.embl.org/staffonly/personnel/training_dev/index.html for more details.

EMBL Heidelberg will be offering areduced-price German course for PhD

students only in February–March. If youwould like to register, please contacttd@embl.de by 30 January 2009.