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ASCB Summer Meeting Series Features Cell Migration - Two of this year's ASCB summer meeting series being held in Seattle Washington, will focus on Cell Migration. The first, organized by Linda Griffith and Jean Schwarzbauer, is entitled "Engineering Cell Biology - The Cell in Context" and will run from July 5th - 18th. The second, entitled "Systems Integration in Directed Cell Motility", is being organized by Clare Waterman-Storer and Gary Bokoch and will run from July 27th - 30th. Image Correlation Microscopy takes Front Page this month in the Journal of Cell Science with an article from members of the Imaging and Photomanipulation Initiative showing integrin submicroscopic clustering, dynamics and interactions. (Wiseman PW, Brown CM, Webb DJ, Hebert B, Johnson NL, Squier JA, Ellisman MH, Horwitz AF. Spatial mapping of integrin interactions and dynamics during cell migration by Image Correlation Microscopy. J Cell Sci. 2004 Oct 12 PubMed.) Visualization of endogenous Cdc42 activation in living cells. Members of the Signaling Initiative have developed a domain-environment sensitive fluorophore which now makes it possible to visualize endogenous Cdc42 activation in living cell. The article appears in the September issue of Science and reports the development of this new biosensor, capable of visualizing the changing activation of endogenous, unlabeled Cdc42 in living cells. Nalbant P, Hodgson L, Kraynov V, Toutchkine A, Hahn KM. Activation of endogenous Cdc42 visualized in living cells. Science. 2004 Sep 10;305(5690):1615-9 PubMed. A new European Consortium targeting Cell Migration in Chronic inflammation, MAIN (Migration And Inflammation) has been funded by the European Union's "Network of Excellence" Sixth Framework programme and is headed by Ruggero Pardi at the Scientific Institute San Raffaele in Milan, Italy. This newly funded consortium is comprised of ~15 Research Institutes (48 research groups) to focus on achieving “a thorough understanding of directed inflammatory cell migration towards and across injured tissues”. The program will address chronic inflammation from a number of different angles, developing tools, research resources and potential targets for drug development. For more information about this nascent Consortium visit their web site at www.main-noe.org Structural basis for vinculin activation at sites of cell adhesion is elucidated by members of the Structure Initiative and appears in Nature - Bakolitsa C, Cohen DM, Bankston LA, Bobkov AA, Cadwell GW, Jennings L, Critchley DR, Craig SW, Liddington RC. Structural basis for vinculin activation at sites of cell adhesion. Nature. 2004 Jun 13 PubMed Mouse Opportunities; The Consortium is working with a number of outside investigators to develop mice of importance to migration research. The process, time lines and terms for making a knockout mouse with the Cell Migration Consortium Transgenic & Knockout Mouse Initiative are outlined on this Initiatives Consortium Activities page. Lipid research is the focus of the most recently funded NIGMS Glue Grant Initiative. This enteprise is headed by Principal Investigator Edward Dennis of the University of California at San Diego. One of the goals of this Consortium is to separate and detect all of the lipids in a specific cell and to discovery and characterize any novel lipids that may be present. For more information about the LIPID Metabolities And Pathways Strategy, LIPID MAPS, visit their web site at http://www.lipidmaps.org/ CMC member Frank Gertler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Biology will receive the fifth annual ASCB/Promega Early Career Life Scientist Award and will present the Award Lecture during the 43rd ASCB Annual Meeting Symposium on Cell Motility, on Wednesday, December 17. Frank is honored for his contributions to research on the mechanisms underlying cytoskeletal remodeling events that drive cell movement. The 4th annual Virtual Cell Short Course sponsored by the National Resource for Cell Analysis and Modeling (NRCAM) at the University of Connecticut Health Center was held on June 9-11, 2003. This is run annually and is an intense hands-on course designed to enable cell biologists and biophysicists to develop a Virtual Cell model of their experimental system. As a NIH/NCRR Biomedical Technology Resource, NRCAM is charged with supporting NIH-funded research through collaborative projects. Accordingly, priority for acceptance into the course is given to NIH-funded laboratories. Biosensors article; Klaus Hahn of the Signaling Initiative sheds light on Cell Signaling in a recent STKE article which provides interpretation of FRET Biosensors and shows the various applications of fluorescent proteins for monitoring signaling processes in living cells. Integrins - structure update; Hynes, RO publishes a review on Integrins as bidirectional, allosteric signaling machines and Liddington & Ginsberg publish a review focusing on the structural basis of integrin activation, the role of the cytoplasmic domain in integrin affinity regulation, and potential mechanisms by which activation signals are propagated from integrin cytoplasmic domains to the extracellular ligand-binding domain. New Migration Models published by Modeling Initiative members; Sachs & colleagues illustrate the application of Bayesian networks to an example cellular pathway involving the activation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in response to fibronectin binding to an integrin. Mogliner & Edelstein-Keshet develop a mathematical model that describes key details of actin dynamics in protrusion associated with cell motility. GFP based expression cloning strategy for novel adhesion and cytoskeletal molecules Manabe et al. CMC Scientist makes top 10; Consortium's Biomaterials researcher, named in "PopSci Brilliant 10" - a list of “scientists who are shaking up their fields and whose work will touch your life,” according to the article. NIGMS awards "Glue Grant" to study Cell Migration NIH Press Release CMC Scientists study Blood Vessel Development Nature Medicine Computational Cell Biology; Nature Jobs highlights computational cell biology as an emerging discipline which combines biology with maths and computer science with the ultimate goal of generating computer models of the living cells. Signaling and Adhesion take center stage in the April Issue of Nature Cell Biology: In this special issue Nature Cell Biology brings together an exciting collection of commissioned pieces in the field of signalling and adhesion and during the month of April the entire issue is available free online at the link above. Additionally, Nature Cell Biology are launching a new "Focus on Signalling and Adhesion" site on their homepage that will contain all the pieces they have previously published in this field and will be updated monthly. Studying transplant organ acceptance through cell migration Chimerism of the Transplanted Heart Cell Migration Research is on the Move News focus article in Science Magazine Jan 2002 Glue Grant Award makes the Chemical & Engineering News C&E News Jan 2002 |
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