Month: April 2012

The TT2013 meeting in China: progress and updated information

The TT2013 meeting in China: progress and updated information
The TT2013 meeting in China: progress and updated information

The organization of the 11th Transgenic Technology meeting (the TT2013 meeting), to be held in Guangzhou, PR China, on February 25-27, 2013, is progressing well. Prof. Ming Zhao (Southern Medical University in Guangzhou), Chair of the TT2013 Organization, and all his colleagues in the various advisory and supporting committees, are doing a great job and, hence, from the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) we are sure that the TT2013 meeting is going to be yet another great transgenic conference for all of us to learn, discuss and enjoy. The preliminary TT2013 meeting web page already informs about the confirmed topics and speakers that will be in Guangzhou. These will be regularly updated as we receive the confirmations from all invited speakers. Registration is expected to be open in June. The registration scheme and registration fees will be similar to the previous TT2011 meeting. The TT2013 meeting will be followed by a 3-day practical hands-on course on basic techniques in transgenesis, coordinated by Dr. Wenhao Xu (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA).

Currently, the confirmed topics and speakers attending the TT2013 meeting include:

Meeting Topics

  • Sperm Cryopreservation and IVF
  • KOMP ES cell clones performance
  • Epigenetics and Transgenesis
  • Effects of in vitro culture on mammalian embryos
  • Targeted nucleases, ZFNs and TALENs, in transgenesis
  • Transgenic pigs and TALENs
  • Transgenic mice and ZFNs
  • KO pigs and ZFNs
  • Zebrafish and TALENs
  • Ethics, animal welfare and regulations
  • Health monitoring protocols and transgenic facilities
  • Non-rodent transgenesis
  • Primate chimeras and ES cells
  • Rat functional genomic initiatives
  • Animal models of human diseases
  • ES and iPS cells
  • transposon (PiggyBac)-mediated mutagenesis
  • Round-table discussion: Running a transgenic facility
  • Running a transgenic facility: The business aspect of running a transgenic unit
  • Running a transgenic facility: managing errors, difficulties
  • Running a transgenic facility: Staying on the cutting edge of technology while still maintaining basic services
  • Rat/mouse chimeras and iPS/ES cells
  • Overview of cre-transgenic mouse lines resources
  • China/Asia/Oceania in the International Mouse Functional Genomics Consortia
  • 3-days hands-on practical workshop on transgenesis procedures after the TT2013 meeting
  • ..

Confirmed Speakers

  • Allan Bradley (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton/Cambridge, UK)
  • Alan Colman (Institute of Medical Biology, Singapore)
  • Scott Fahrenkrug (Recombinetics, Minneapolis, MN, USA)
  • Malcolm France (Sydney University, Sydney, Australia)
  • Xiang Gao (Model Animal Research Center of Nanjing University, Nanjing, PR China)
  • Alfonso Gutiérrez-Adán (Dep. Animal Reproduction, INIA, Madrid, Spain)
  • Yann Herault (Institut Clinique de la Souris, ICS and IGBMC, Illkirch/Strasbourg, France)
  • Dietmar Kappes (Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
  • Liangxue Lai (Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Science, Guangzhou, PR China)
  • Kent Lloyd (University of California, Davis, CA, USA)
  • Shoukhrat Mitalipov (Oregon National Primate Research Center, OHSU, Beaverton, OR, USA)
  • Naomi Nakagata (Center for Animal Resources and Development, Kumamoto University, Japan)
  • Catheryn O’Brien (The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, Australia)
  • Masaru Okabe (Genome Information Research Center Research, Institute for Microbial Diseases, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan)
  • Jan Parker-Thornburg (MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA)
  • Ling Sun (Institute of Developmental Biology and Molecular Medicine, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China)
  • Bo Zhang (College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, PR China)
  • Qi Zhou (The State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China)

From the ISTT, as in previous TT meetings, we will also promote and support the participation of ISTT members by sponsoring several registration awards for ISTT Members. Deadline for submitting applications for these ISTT Registration Awards is October 15, 2012. Instructions to apply can be found at the corresponding web page of the ISTT web site.

Please, write down the dates of the TT2013 meeting: February 25-27, 2013, and make sure you don’t miss this conference!. See you all in China next year!

II SPCAL Meeting on Laboratory Animal Science, Lisbon, Portugal, May 24-25, 2012

II SPCAL Meeting on Laboratory Animal Science, Lisbon, Portugal, May 24-25, 2012
II SPCAL Meeting on Laboratory Animal Science, Lisbon, Portugal, May 24-25, 2012

Dear Colleagues,

The Portuguese LAS association – Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências em Animais de Laboratório (SPCAL) – is organizing its second National Scientific Meeting on May 24 and 25, in Lisbon. The moto is Care for Laboratory Animals if you Care for your Research and, by covering a wide range of subjects, the Meeting is targeted to all those working with laboratory animals: from LAS professionals to researchers.

The meeting will he held in English, hosting many well known speakers. We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to take part in the program with posters and/or oral communications. These should be submitted though the website described below.

You can download the Meeting’s Poster and Program. All relevant information and contacts may be found on SPCAL’s website, on the dedicated tab.

We look forward to welcoming you, and we ask your collaboration in distributing this email within your colleagues, institutions, and relevant scientific societies/associations.

Kindest regards

Dolores Bonaparte
Sociedade Portuguesa de Ciências em Animais de Laboratório (SPCAL), Organizing Committee

Life in the Fast Lane: an excellent overview

Recently published in Cell, the paper titled “Life in the Fast Lane: Mammalian Disease Models in the Genomics Era” by Lukas Dow and Scott Lowe (vol 148, issue 6, 16 March 2012, p. 1099-1109) provides an excellent overview of the various methods and techniques that are available to develop rodent models of disease, as diagrammed in the picture here from the same paper. It’s a worthwhile read for anyone in our field.

ISTT members chosen for a Panel on Transgenics for the 63rd annual AALAS meeting

63rd AALAS National Meering, Minneapolis, MN, November 3-8, 2012
63rd AALAS National Meering, Minneapolis, MN, November 3-8, 2012

AALAS, or the American Association for Laboratory Animal Sciences is hosting their 63rd Annual Meeting this fall.

For ISTT members planning on attending the AALAS national meeting in Minneapolis MN (USA) in November 3-8, 2012, we would love for you to attend our panel discussion on communications between veterinarians and transgenic facility managers. ISTT members, Jan Parker-Thornberg (MD Anderson) and Aimee Stablewski (Roswell Park Cancer Institute) will be part of the panel discussion along with Rob Taft from the Jackson Laboratory and our veterinarians (Kate Naff, Linda Waterman and Sandra Buitrago, respectively).

AALAS has thousands of applications for presentations so we are fortunate that ours was accepted. This is an ISTT-supported activity. Please come and participate with us.

Melissa Larson (University of Kansas Medical Center), the ISTT member representative before AALAS, will be also taking charge of our ISTT booth this year. Thank you to Melissa, for this great help. If any ISTT member will be attending the meeting, and would like to help Melissa, please email us to volunteer at: aalas@transtechsociety.org

Information about the National AALAS meeting:

Each fall since 1950, the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science (AALAS) has held its annual National Meeting. During the five days of the meeting, members and nonmembers come together to enjoy the workshops, lectures, poster sessions, and exhibits. The program is designed to have topics relevant to the entire membership. Exhibitors have an opportunity to interact with AALAS members from the academic community, research institutions, government organizations, and commercial companies.

The AALAS National Meeting is the largest gathering in the world of professionals concerned with the production, care, and use of laboratory animals. Please see the AALAS meeting website for details on how to register

The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) is an AALAS affiliate organization.

We hope to see you there!!

Genetic differences among C57BL/6 mouse strains available from the Mouse Phenome Database

Genetic differences among C57BL/6 mouse strains
Genetic differences among C57BL/6 mouse strains

The Mouse Phenome Database (MPD), at the Jackson laboratory web site, has recently updated their list of SNP polymorphisms for closely related strains across the entire mouse genome. The premade lists, genome-wide, ready-to-use, now include three NEW comparisons containing all currently known genetic differences (SNPs) among C57BL/6 strains, particularly between C57BL/6J and C57BL/6N mouse strains, and their related substrains (entire genome occurrences).

  1. C57BL/6J versus C57BL/6NJ

    2. (coding and UTR regions only, 4341 SNPs)

  2. C57BL/6J versus C57BL/6NJ (all available SNPs that are polymorphic, 152001 SNPs)
  3. 13 C57BL/6 mouse related strains, J and N, including: C57BL/6J, C57BL/6ByJ, C57BL/6JArc, C57BL/6JBomTac, C57BL/6JCrl, C57BL/6JEiJ, C57BL/6JOlaHsd, C57BL/6JRccHsd, C57BL/6NCrl, C57BL/6NHsd, C57BL/6NJ, C57BL/6NNIH, C57BL/6NTac

The entire community of researchers in biomedicine using mouse genetics greatly appreciates the most useful service and helpful web resources provided by the MPD team. Thanks a lot colleagues!

World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities

World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities
World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities

At the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) web site, according to the aims of our Society. we care to provide the entire scientific community with as much information as possible regarding how and where to generate genetically modified animals, particularly transgenic and knockout mice, as useful animal models for research projects in biology, biotechnology and biomedicine. One of these resources of information is the World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities, currently holding more than 125 links to web sites of transgenic core facilities located in 27 countries, world wide. The transgenic core facilities can be easily found in a list, arranged per country, or using a useful Google Maps built-in feature depicting the geographic location of each transgenic facility.

Is your transgenic core facility not yet listed in the World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities offered from the ISTT web site? No problem. Whether public or private, whether based on an academic environment or associated with a company, all transgenic core facilities, all initiatives meant to produce transgenic animals (mice, rats, other mammals, other vertebrates,…) on demand, for research purposes, are welcome and we, at the ISTT, will be pleased to include all these links in our web site. Please contact us at istt@transtechsociety.org and send us your web link and contact details of your transgenic core facility and we will be more than happy to add your transgenic core facility to the list of World Map of Transgenic Core Facilities.

Thanks for submitting the web site of your Transgenic Core Facility to the ISTT.

Slides Available for Webinar on Optimizing Quality Assurance for Mouse Sperm Freezing and Rederivation using Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis

Hamilton-Thorne Webimar, 29 March 2012
Hamilton-Thorne Webimar, 29 March 2012

On Thursday, March 29th, 2012, our colleagues at Hamilton Thorne hosted a webinar titled: “Optimizing Quality Assurance for Mouse Sperm Freezing and Rederivation using Computer Assisted Sperm Analysis” This webinar was delivered by ISTT members, Lily Reed and Ian Rosewell as well as Hamilton Thorne’s Kate Craig.

Hamilton Thorne has been generous enough to provide ISTT members with the slides from this webinar presentation which you can find in the Methods section of the Members-Only portion of the ISTT website:

Thank you to Hamilton Thorne for your continued support for the ISTT and it’s members!

Standard renewal process is over. Late renewals possible until December 31st, 2012

Standard renewal process is over. Late renewals possible until December 31st, 2012
Standard renewal process is over. Late renewals possible until December 31st, 2012

The regular and standard renewal process for ISTT memberships finished on March 31st, 2012. All former 2011 ISTT members that have not renewed have been deactivated and their ISTT web resources and access to members-only area terminated. However, late renewals will be possible until December 31st, 2012.

Former 2011 ISTT members requesting late renewals by December 31st, 2012 will have all their ISTT web resources restored, their subscription to the ISTT_list resumed and the access to the members-only area of the ISTT web site reactivated, while retaining their historial records of ISTT membership. After December 31st, 2012, all former 2011 ISTT members that have not renewed during 2012 will be deleted from the ISTT members database and, correspondingly, subsequent application for ISTT membership will be treated as any new member registering to this Society. Please, visit the JOIN/RENEW page to join this Society or to trigger your late renewal. Thanks for your support to the ISTT!