In This Issue... Special Insert for Newcomers
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17 EMBL October 2003 &cetera Newsletter of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory The ALMF turns five...page 2 Tackling toxicity and pharmacology ...page 3 EMBL at ELSO...page 4 EM core facility opens at EMBL Heidelberg Research groups in EMBL’s Cell Biology and Biophysics Programme are moving Special insert for over to make space for new neighbours: the electron microscopy group. Led by Claude Antony, the group will function as a service while carrying out research. The group is based on the successful model of the Advanced Light Microscopy Newcomers Facility, which serves as a training center for visitors from across the member states, while at the same time performing cutting-edge research. on page 2 (and maybe some Oldcomers) HD Forum draws welcome support If only you had known when you first The Heidelberg Forum on the Biosciences and Society, a collaboration between arrived at the lab... EMBL, the German Cancer Research Centre, and the University of Heidelberg, A two-page insert in this issue gives was given a welcome boost as MLP founder Manfred Lautenschläger announced insider tips for setting up camp at the he will sponsor the initiative’s series of talks on science and society. main Laboratory, in Heidelberg, in on page 4 Germany, and maybe the universe as ALMF celebrates five years of looking at we know it. Predocs and other newcomers will get really, really, really, really, really small things the low-down on who’s who and what’s what. For example: do I really The Advanced Light Microscopy Facility goes into its sixth year with an influx of have to respect the double yellow lines new equipment from the world’s foremost microscope manufacturers. Totalling when parking my car out in the lot? more than 1 million Euros, the machines will light up the microscopic world in Answer: YES!!!!!! a much wider spectrum of color for EMBL scientists and visitors. on page 2 4 years old and already a classic: the EMBO/EMBL joint conference on Science & Society in this issue... The structure of DNA was solved, and as if the ultimate determinant of the course of all life on the planet had been revealed, Jim Watson famously pro- electron microscopy at EMBL 2 claimed, "We used to believe our destiny was in the stars; now we know it is in our genes." He was partially right, but to what extent? "Genetics, molecular medicine 3 Determinism and Human Freedom" takes the EMBL/EMBO joint conference alumni association news 3 on Science & Society into its fourth year on 14-15 November. A mixture of sci- entists, communicators, philosophers, ethicists, legal experts, and patient and science and society 4 consumer representatives will present and discuss, repeating the successful the EMBO corner 5 recipe that annually brings over 200 participants to the EMBL Operon. In four sessions (“technological revolutions,” “genes and disease,” “the use and abuse news & events 7 of genetic information,” and “fast forward into the future”), the conference will people@EMBL 8 analyse the social impact of the increasing accessibility of a person's genetic information to the probing of science, medicine and the information society. For more information, see www.embo.org/projects/scisoc/scisoc2003.html EMBL&cetera Issue 17 - October 2003 Establishing an Electron Microscopy Core Facility at EMBL Research groups in EMBL’s Cell Biology and of cells can be frozen in milliseconds. The the EM environment for cell biology through Biophysics Programme are moving over to procedure can be performed on big cells or training, courses and supporting many make space for new neighbours: the electron small embryos. It can even be performed on groups who use the techniques. microscopy group. Led by Claude Antony, Drosophila oocytes, opening this field to a The HPF machine will increase the range of the group will function as a service while level of imaging that has not been possible equipment devoted to the preparation of cell carrying out research. The unit is based on before." specimens, which includes several micro- the successful model of the Advanced Light Claude joined EMBL in June after having tomes and cryotomes for ultrathin sections Microscopy Facility, which serves as a train- worked in the lab of Nobel Prize-winner (in total 5 machines plus a freeze substitu- ing center for visitors from across the mem- Paul Nurse at Cancer Research UK in tion machine). Taken together, the high-reso- ber states, while at the same time performing London. There he developed EM studies to lution EM machine, generously given to cutting-edge research. analyze the precise organization of cytoplas- EMBL by the German Research Ministry on The need for the service arose from an mic microtubules of the fission yeast and the occasion of the Heidelberg Laboratory’s increasing demand by scientists for electron obtain a 3D reconstruction of this network, 25th anniversary, and the HPF will help microscopy for cell biology. Several EMBL which is essential in establishing and main- make EMBL one of the strongest EM centers groups are turning to EM techniques to get a taining cell polarity and tip growth. At in Europe. better look at cell structures and molecular EMBL, Claude and his team plan to use EM complexes. The facility will help prepare methods to study mitosis in budding yeast The Electron Microscopy group will also samples for simple morphological analysis and take a close look at the mitotic spindle help EMBL to fulfill one of its primary mis- or immunocytochemistry to label and local- organization in wild-type and mutant cells. sions – to provide training to visitors from ize antigens (cryosections, lowicryl, etc.). An They are currently looking to recruit a post- member states. If demand exceeds the facili- emphasis will be put on High Pressure doctoral fellow to help them. ty’s capacity, researchers will submit project Freezing (HPF) using a new machine dedi- The new electron microscopy facility finds proposals that will be evaluated by a com- cated to the cryofixation of samples from solid footing in a long history of expertise in mittee. Successful applicants will come for yeast cells to much larger objects. cryofixation procedures at EMBL. Jacques one to two weeks to use the equipment, after “High pressure freezing gives us a very Dubochet and Stephen Fuller, for example, which they will return to their home institu- powerful and efficient way to perform cryo- were pioneers in these techniques. Gareth tions with expertise and their cryofixed sam- fixation of cells," says Claude. "Whole pellets Griffiths and his group have also enriched ples in hand. Advanced Light Microscopy Facility celebrates its fifth birthday In October of this year, Rainer Pepperkok require the orchestration of several different and his colleagues in EMBL’s Advanced molecules. They can monitor the dynamics Light Microscopy Facility popped the corks of proteins, membrane-bound organelles or on the champagne to toast their fifth parasites trafficking inside cells as well as anniversary. the movement of cells inside entire organ- "When we started the facility, we had two isms. Biochemical reactions can also be microscopes, a handful of visitors, and a lot investigated by modern light microscopy of ambition," says Rainer. "Today the ALMF methods, such as fluorescence recovery after has twelve microscopes and is one of the most advanced centers for microscopy in the photobleaching (FRAP) or fluorescence reso- world." The facility is a unique collaboration nance energy transfer (FRET). The new between research and basic industry, where equipment in the facility also permits the commercial collaborators provide cutting imaging of a wider range of colours, which edge equipment to the laboratory free of allows a greater number of molecules to be charge. Visiting and EMBL researchers work studied. together with facility staff to perform their own experiments and try out the latest in "Until recently we could only distinguish microscopy technology. three to four colours," says Rainer. "With the The candles on the cake are the recent acqui- new light sources and optics we can see a sition of more than one million Euros’ worth whole rainbow spectrum of colours – any- of new equipment from industrial sponsors, thing we have a reaction for. We have also including wide-field and confocal micro- developed software that helps us to interpret scopes from Olympus, Leica and Zeiss. "The and dissect the complex image information arrival of the new equipment is a tribute to we can obtain with the new systems, giving the success of the ALMF over the years," us a better understanding of the roles played says Rainer, "and also to the groups at EMBL by particular molecules during different cel- and beyond who have trained on them." lular processes." The new microscopes allow some of the Photo by Maj Britt Hansen fastest and most detailed confocal imaging For more on the latest developments at the Jens Rietdorf and Timo Zimmermann at work on some possible. Researchers can now track ALMF, visit www.embl.de/ExternalInfo/ of the new ALMF microscopes. extremely complex cellular processes that almf/new.html 3 molecular medicine Tackling toxicity and pharmacology through bioinformatics "If the European Union (EU) gets its way, This marriage of toxicology and genomics toxicology will soon be booming in Europe," has created not only opportunities, but also stated a recent news article (Science 300, 404; new informatics challenges. The EBI’s 2003), referring to the EU’s proposal to make Microarray Informatics team is rising to the the European chemical industry responsible challenge: in 2002 they teamed up with the for performing toxicity tests on over 30,000 International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) chemicals that are already on the market. Health and Environmental Sciences When this policy is implemented, “toxicoge- Institute's (HESI) Genomics Committee to nomics” will be invaluable to gain insight establish a database for toxicogenomic gene into the molecular mechanisms of toxicity, expression data.