Systems Biology of Drosophila Development

An excellent meeting in Poland organised by Yogi Jaeger & Eileen Furlong (with excellent support from Allegra Roccato of the ESF).  Some quite outstanding presentations from various JEDI, as well as stuff from the somewhat older members of the fly community.

Steve in lab work shocker

I had to decend into the lab to finish our modENCODE insulator and silencer validation assays – done just in time for the Data Coordination Centre deadline!  Thanks to the group for suffering the “aged one” in the lab 🙂

Somewhat worrying for the group, I kind of got the taste for lab work again and may have to plan a sabbatical at the bench!

S

End of an Era

After almost 7 years the Gates team is slowly dissolving.  Dean will shortly depart for Australia to his soon to be acquired orchard near Manjimup.  We’ve had fun I think and done some good science along the way!

Good luck Dean

Killie in the Sunshine

Up to Hampden to see Killie play Celtic in the League Cup final.  “The day was bright and sunny” (Proclaimers – Joyful Kilmarnock Blues).  We travelled more in hope than expectation but were rewarded by a fine performance from the Lads, some splendid goalkeeping from man of the match Cammy Bell, a goal 6 min from time and Killie are in Dreamland.

2012 League Cup Winners without conceding a single goal in the whole tournament.

Drink was taken!

2012 Fly Meeting

In the glorious world of post-viva freedom, Jelena is joining in with mass fruit fly worship at the Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago. She’s also occasionally expressing her enthusiasm by blogging and tweeting about it.

Bettina’s Fly Sperm Paper Published

Our paper on the mRNA content of fly sperm, a collaboration between FlyChip, Tim Karr and Steve Dorus, is published in Proc R Soc B today.  We make the interesting observation that mature fly sperm contain an mRNA repertoire and that at least some of these transcripts are transferred to the egg upon fertilisation.  Intriguingly, the major signature of the fly sperm mRNA population is a striking enrichment for mRNAs encoding ribosomal proteins and other translation functions: we find exactly the same enrichment in the mRNA purified from human sperm.  A mystery 🙂

Jelena survives viva

Jelena had her PhD viva on Friday, after delivering a research talk to the dept, and survived relatively unscathed.  Drink was taken 🙂

Well done!

New Music

The long awaited (by me at least) record from Twilight Sad is to be recommended.  Following my enjoyment of the Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross Girl With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, a collection of Nine Inch Nails records are now available.  Check out the Feist records (in preparation for Green Man Festival) and a few other more esoteric things for your delectation.

Enjoy

Steve

The fly genome in 3D

A fantastic paper from Giacomo Cavalli’s lab – a whole genome Hi-C map of the fly genome develops a model of the way the fly genome is partitioned into regulatory domains in the nucleus.  This is a technical tour-de-force that provides a basis for exploring how the genome is partitioned into active and inactive domains in the 3D space of the nucleus.

Sexton et al (2012) Cell 148:

Creosote & Hopkins

Kenny Anderson (AKA King Creosote) & Jon Hopkins performed their sublime Diamond Mine record at J2 last night, spellbinding (apart from the twats with the loud clicky cameras who had to be restrained).  If you haven’t heard this record, you should check it out.

S

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