AUTUMN 2014 ISSUE 28 Discovery Centre FEBS-EMBO opens Anniversary in Dundee Conference PAGE 13 PAGES 2 – 3 irgile Delâtre FEBS-EMBO JOINT ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE ©V The mental maps of bees PAGES 6 –7 Feature Members of the Polish EMBO Interview EMBO Member David Ron from Feature Behind the scenes of the European community present their research at the Cambridge Institute of Medical Research Union-funded BioMedBridges project which the BIO 2014 Congress in Warsaw. describes the benefts of agitation. is building infrastructure and a culture for shared data in the life sciences . PAGE 5 PAGE 11 PAGE 4 www.embo.org THE FEBS–EMBO ANNIVERSARY 2014 CONFERENCE ©Virgile Delâtre reveal about the incredible geographic migra- Highlights from the FEBS-EMBO tion of humans over the years. “Modern humans originated in Africa and began their migration to other parts of the world almost 100 000 to 125 000 Anniversary Conference in Paris years ago,” said Pääbo. His work, which involves painstaking analysis of often scarce amounts of he FEBS-EMBO Anniversary Conference of “Mr. FEBS” Satya Prakash Datta. Whelan first genetic material recovered from human bones in hosted by the French Society for proposed a journal for the rapid communication remote locations, has helped to build up a picture TBiochemistry and Molecular Biology of short reports in biochemistry, biophysics and of the influence of Neanderthals on the migration (SFBBM) took place in Paris from 30 August to 4 molecular biology in 1967. Datta played a key of humans out of Africa, through parts of Europe September. More than 2500 scientists from over role in establishing and running FEBS Letters and into Asia. Pääbo’s work on ancient DNA has 60 countries came together to listen to six excit- which went on to be very successful. At the meet- successfully distinguished at the genetic level ing days of talks from leading researchers in the ing, the EMBO and FEBS journals collaborated to what makes us different from our Neanderthal life sciences and to celebrate the joint anniversa- award prizes for the best posters of the day and cousins. His recent book “Neanderthal man: ries of EMBO, FEBS and the SFBBM. the winning posters were displayed in a special In search of lost genomes,” which comprises “I would like to extend a warm thank you to area of the conference. memoirs from his career, was recently published everyone who contributed to an outstanding In the opening scientific lectures, Catherine by Basic Books. anniversary meeting in Paris,” said Maria Leptin, Dulac from Harvard University and Svante Pääbo On the second day of the meeting, Thomas Director of EMBO. “It was a wonderful event that from the Max Planck institute for Evolutionary Stocker from the University of Bern gave a reflected both the excitement and excellence of Anthropology in Leipzig described their latest special plenary lecture on climate change. science in Europe. I am convinced that the rela- scientific work. Dulac’s talk focused on how “Climate change is the biggest challenge of the tionships we have established between our organ- the mouse brain is geared for social interaction. century,” commented EMBO Secretary General izations will serve us well in the years ahead.” She outlined the striking antagonistic interac- Sir Paul Nurse in his introduction to the talk. Marie-Christine Lemardeley from the Office tions in brain systems that underlie parental of the Mayor of Paris opened the meeting and care and infant-directed aggression in both male VIDEO remarked that she was particularly looking and female mice. Remarkably the mouse brain forward to the opening lecture by Svante Pääbo has the infrastructure to support male or female and the session on transparent publishing. After child-rearing characteristics. “Highly conserved welcoming remarks from EMBO, FEBS and circuits and modulatory mechanisms may exist SFBBM, Gottfried Schatz and William Whelan across species and in both male and female brains revealed the early histories and development to regulate parental interactions with offspring,” of EMBO and FEBS, respectively. “EMBO is said Dulac. The fine line that divides the differ- unashamedly elitist,” said Schatz. “It has never ences in mental processes in mice for what we joined the mania of big science. I hope its heart would call good and bad parenting is striking. Catherine Dulac Brain function and chromatin plasticity will beat vigorously for years to come.” William Dulac believes that studying these processes in Harvard University Professor Catherine Whelan, the first Secretary General of FEBS, has mice will help reveal the complexities of human Dulac talks about the role of histone, the been an active participant in the activities of parental behavior and its susceptibility to mental basis of memory, and the future of molecular FEBS since it took its first steps 50 years ago. illness. neurosciences. He emphasized the importance of the contribu- Svante Pääbo’s talk focused on the origins tions of the FEBS journals to the development of and evolution of humans. He described what new http://serious-science.org/videos/934 the society as well as the crucial contributions DNA sequencing technologies have been able to 2 EMBOencounters | Autumn 2014 | [email protected] ©2014 EMBO THE FEBS–EMBO ANNIVERSARY 2014 CONFERENCE “The consequences for the planet are huge if oceans to see what a dramatic effect humans cancer and cardiovascular disease. Rapamycin we do not limit it.” Stocker described how the have had on the planet. There has been a huge received clinical approval in 1999 for use in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had change in energy content down to a depth of 2 prevention of organ rejection in kidney transplant put together their most recent assessment enti- km, almost 250 x 1021 Joules over the years 1970 patients. Torisel and Afinitor were approved in tled Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science to 2010. This is greater than the energy output 2007 and 2009, respectively, for the treatment of Basis. A four-year project with input from 259 of the world for a year.” Limiting climate change advanced kidney cancer. Hall went on to present scientists and approval from governments around will require substantial and sustained reductions a unified model for TOR signaling in genetics and the world, the report documents the evidence in greenhouse gas emissions. “There is no magic biochemistry. for human influence on the world’s climate. bullet to reduce emissions from fossil fuels,” said Other highlights at the meeting included a Warming of the climate system is unequivo- Stocker “but we have a choice.” plenary session on epigenetics. The session cal, say the contributors to the report, and it Michael Hall delivered the FEBS Sir Hans Krebs ended with talks from EMBO Members David is extremely likely that human influence is the Lecture describing the discovery of TOR (target Baulcombe, Wolf Reik and Susan Gasser. The dominant cause of the observed warming since of rapamycin) and its role in signaling events for FEBS-EMBO Anniversary Conference included 30 the mid-20th century. “One only has to look at growth and metabolism. Since its discovery in concurrent sessions that spanned the cell cycle, the change in the energy content of the world’s 1991, around 3000 papers have been published chromosome structure, cilia and disease, mito- in the scientific literature on TOR (2012 data). He chondria and mitochondrial disease, stem cells, went on to describe some of the applications that microbiology and synthetic biology. Four plenary have arisen from this work. Research on TOR sessions explored topics that included bioin- has resulted in drugs to prevent organ rejection formatics, genomics, epigenetics, the immune during transplantations and new ways to treat system, cell biology and systems biology. Participants at the FEBS-EMBO anniversary conference in the Exhibition Hall in Paris ©Virgile Delâtre design for the medal that we award to young The EMBO scientists for outstanding contributions to the life sciences in Europe.” The new design created by the EMBO graph- Gold Medal ic design team not only includes a fresh repre- SOPHIE MARTIN of the University sentation of the cell but also incorporates new elements that reflect, for example, the more of Lausanne, Switzerland, received quantitative aspects of molecular biology. the 2014 EMBO Gold Medal at Martin has been working for the past 15 the FEBS-EMBO Anniversary years to understand cellular polarity, in particu- lar the way in which the spatial organization of Conference in Paris. The medal cells contributes to cell size and cell division. ©Virgile Delâtre was awarded for her work to In the last 11 years, she has been using fission understand the molecular events yeast, which grow as single, rod-shaped cells, as a model system for her investigations. that define the organization and Martin and her team have revealed how development of the cell. gradients of specific control proteins at the extremities of the cell contribute to the control he Gold Medal has been redesigned for of cell growth and the ultimate size of the cell. TEMBO’s anniversary year. “2014 is the “I have always been fascinated by how perfect year to introduce a new look for the biological processes are spatially organized EMBO Gold Medal,” commented EMBO within cells. I feel incredibly lucky not only to Director Maria Leptin. “We wanted to mark the have the freedom to study this basic problem occasion of our 50th anniversary with a new but to be rewarded for it,” said Martin. ©2014 EMBO EMBOencounters | Autumn 2014 | [email protected] 3 NEWS FROM THE EMBO COMMUNITY when studying diseases that affect different organ- Building bridges for isms in the same way: the effectiveness of possi- ble treatments for human patients can be tested translational research on mouse models.