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06/11/2014

Society News

GSA has provided input to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on the 21st Century Cures Initiative, which the committee describes as a “comprehensive look at what steps we can take to accelerate the pace of cures in America.” GSA's letter focused on the importance of discovery for innovation. We emphasized that translational research cannot occur without basic discoveries to translate. We provided examples of the ways in which basic research has led to improved medical treatments and the development of whole new fields of study and industries like biotechnology. GSA also highlighted the contributions of work in model organisms, and described them as "essential for advancing our understanding of human disease." [more…]

Calling all yeast researchers: the early registration deadline for this year’s Yeast Genetics Meeting is June 26. The meeting will take place in Seattle during its sunny days of July 29–August 3, and features a stellar list of speakers including yeast community awardees George Church, Olga Troyanskaya, Jeremy Thorner, and Anita Hopper. Save $75 by registering today!

Zebrafish ConferenceThe 11th International Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics will be held June 24–28 in Madison, Wisconsin. Keynote speakers include John Postlethwait and Sarah Tishkoff. Advance and on-site registration is still available.

Still shopping for that Father’s Day gift? If you’re an Amazon.com shopper, support GSA by buying Dad’s gift (or any eligible purchase) through AmazonSmile. GSA will receive 0.5% of the purchase price and a bonus of $5 for each customer who shops in our support before Father’s Day! All at no additional cost for your purchase. Start shopping here.

The GSA Journals

Modular skeletal evolution in sticklebacks: Sticklebacks have repeatedly evolved changes to their skeleton as they adapt from oceanic to freshwater environments. In the latest issue of GENETICS, Miller et al. analyzed a large cross between marine and freshwater sticklebacks and identified over 100 quantitative trait loci controlling skeletal traits. They found that most QTL were at least partially additive and many with high LOD scores were clustered in the genome. Their results suggest concerted changes in traits may occur when sticklebacks inherit alleles at linked or possible “supergene” regions of the genome.

There’s an app for that: Teaching introductory genetics and evolution? In the latest issue of G3: Genes|Genomes|Genetics, Myers et al. present a suite of tools in an iOS app that allows students to simulate genetic crosses and allele frequency changes, generate and solve practice problems, and quiz themselves to reinforce terminology (customizable by the instructor).

Will you be attending the International Conference on Zebrafish Development and Genetics this month in Madison? Find the GSA Journals Booth and talk with editors and staff about GENETICS and G3! On Wednesday June 25th, we’re also hosting a lunch with tips and tricks on getting published. Stop by and see us!

SocialCiteGENETICS and G3 are proud to announce their participation in an initial pilot for SocialCite, a new qualitative citation measurement tool. The GSA journals join The Rockefeller University Press (publishers of Journal of Cell Biology), the American Physiological Society, and PNAS in the pilot program. SocialCite will appear this summer in GENETICS and G3 articles, and will allow readers the opportunity to provide information about why a reference is cited and the quality of the evidence cited. Authors will learn how their research is being cited, whether readers believe the research is of high quality, and even whether their findings are possibly being distorted or misused. Stay tuned for more information!

Members in the News

Dance of Development
C. elegans development on Vimeo

Two GSA members and their time-lapse video of the first 13 hours of C. elegans development were featured in the NIH Director’s blog. The video by postdoc Amanda Zacharias and PI John Murray of the University of Pennsylvania won an award in FASEB’s 2013 BioArt competition. Congratulations!

Included in this Issue:


May Issue

May Issue

NEW POSTINGS IN
GeneticsCareers.org

Postdoctoral fellow, University of Maryland , Baltimore, MD

Postdoctoral Associate in Technologies and Applications for Genome Structural Variation and Evolution, University of Michigan , Ann Arbor, MI

Medical Officer, National Institutes of Health , Rockville, MD

Postdoctoral Fellow Cancer Biology, University of Queensland Diamantina Institute , Brisbane, QLD

Deputy Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

Post-doctoral Research Fellows in Human Genetics, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD

Postdoctoral researcher in stem cell biology and host microbe interactions in Drosophila, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

Postdoctoral Associate in Canine Genomics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, CT

Genetic Counselor - Cancer, Sharsheret, Teaneck, NJ

Postdoctoral research associate, Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, CA

Education and Professional Development

Summer is the ideal time to prepare your education-related materials for publication! Unsure of where to publish? GSA provides several outlets for publication, whether you have completed education research with rigorous assessment data, have an inquiry-based laboratory exercise to share, or want to help bring the primary literature to the classroom. Review your options and consider submitting a manuscript to CBE–Life Sciences Education or a resource to GSA PREP.

What’s it like to be a mother and a scientist? An assistant professor at MIT provides helpful insights in an interview with Naturejobs. She describes her reasoning behind the claim that academia is a family-friendly career path and provides advice for young scientists who are considering not having children in order to advance their career.

Do you know a teacher using zebrafish in a K–12 classroom to promote excellent science education?  Aquaneering has donated an E-Rack, a mini zebrafish rack for use in the classroom, and the zebrafish education community is currently accepting proposals from K–12 teachers to secure the E-rack for their classroom. The rack will be awarded to a teacher who has demonstrated the need for a stable, multi-tank system to advance plans to use zebrafish in the classroom. Proposals are due July 31, 2014; see the request for proposals for more details!

Genomic medicine gets personal: a massive open online course based at Georgetown University with lectures from expert faculty in multiple disciplines (including genetics, computational science, genetic counseling, bioethics, law, and business) just started and already has >20K registrants!

Funding, Fellowships, and Awards

The National Science Foundation Research Traineeship Program (RTP) is accepting proposals for cross-cutting, interdisciplinary graduate programs that will ensure adequate training for graduate students across a wide range of STEM careers. Proposals must demonstrate alignment with national research priorities; collaboration with institutions outside of academia is encouraged. The deadline for proposals is June 24, 2014.

HHMI’s Janelia Farm Research Campus and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have established the Advanced Imaging Center at Janelia that will make several cutting-edge imaging technologies widely available to researchers before they are commercially available. Recognizing that these technologies are challenging to share and maintain, the program will provide access to five advanced optical microscopes at no cost to researchers. Stay tuned for the call for applications to gain access to these amazing technologies.

Policy

By a unanimous 30-0 vote, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a FY 2015 appropriations bill which would provide the full budget request of $7.2 billion for NSF.

Yesterday, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee with jurisdiction for NIH approved $30.46 billion in funding for NIH in FY 2015. This would represent an increase of $605 million (1.8%) over current funding levels. The funding must still be approved by the full Appropriations Committee and Senate before being reconciled with appropriations passed by the House.

NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences has posted a summary of its May 23 Advisory Council meeting. The summary includes comments about the refocus on investigator-initiated research from NIGMS, GSA, and ASCB. 

NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute has also posted a summary of its May 19 Advisory Council meeting, including YouTube videos of the presentations. Highlights include results from electronic medical records and genomics, Mendelian genomics, and exploratory research in clinical sequencing.

An NIH working group has released its vision for the BRAIN Initiative over the next decade. The report BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision calls for $4.5 billion in new federal funding for brain-related research, including support for parallel studies in human and non-human models.

NIH’s Center for Scientific Review is seeking your ideas on how to detect potential bias in peer review and how to strengthen reviewer training to enhance impartiality and fairness. Your ideas can not only help improve NIH peer review, but can win you up to $10,000. Submissions must be received by June 30, 2014.

Hot new research

And finally…

Recent highlights from the GSA’s social networking platforms.  Keep up with the buzz by joining us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn:

Do you have a brief announcement to submit to GSA e-News?
e-News items include news about GSA members – new positions, book publication, awards or grants received and obits; short policy items; brief research news items and grant programs; and, award nomination announcements.

Deadline for next issue: June 20, 2014. Send items to GSA's Communications and Engagement Manager, Raeka Aiyar, raiyar@genetics-gsa.org.