Leung Lab Blog

Sylvia and Fai attended the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and presented their work on novel signal transduction for photoreceptor development and using traditional Chinese medicine to treat retinal degeneration. Sylvia received a National Eye Institute Travel Grant and Yeunkyung Woo Achieve Excellence Travel Award to attend the meeting. Sylvia and Fai also interacted with colleagues all over the world during different events including the SERI reception, ARVO dinner with The Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical College, and ARVO CUHK-JSIEC Research Networking Evening. More pictures to follow.

Sylvia and Fai in front of Sylvia’s poster

Nature Special Issue on “The Future of Publishing“

Neuroscience

1. Horikawa T, Tamaki M, Miyawaki Y, Kamitani Y. Neural Decoding of Visual Imagery During Sleep. Science. 2013 Apr 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23558170.
2. Chung K, Wallace J, Kim SY, Kalyanasundaram S, Andalman AS, Davidson TJ, Mirzabekov JJ, Zalocusky KA, Mattis J, Denisin AK, Pak S, Bernstein H, Ramakrishnan C, Grosenick L, Gradinaru V, Deisseroth K. Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature. 2013 Apr 10. doi: 10.1038/nature12107. [Epub ahead of print]
   • A new way of clearing tissue for imaging!
   • Commentary: Shen H. See-through brains clarify connections. Nature. 2013 Apr 11;496(7444):151. doi: 10.1038/496151a. PubMed PMID: 23579658.
   • From the New York Times: Brains as Clear as Jell-O for Scientists to Explore

Genomics

Zebrafish genome sequencing

1. Howe K, et al. The zebrafish reference genome sequence and its relationship to the human genome. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12111. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594743.
2. Schier AF. Genomics: Zebrafish earns its stripes. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature12094. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594741.
3. Kettleborough RN, Busch-Nentwich EM, Harvey SA, Dooley CM, de Bruijn E, van Eeden F, Sealy I, White RJ, Herd C, Nijman IJ, Fényes F, Mehroke S, Scahill C, Gibbons R, Wali N, Carruthers S, Hall A, Yen J, Cuppen E, Stemple DL. A
   systematic genome-wide analysis of zebrafish protein-coding gene function. Nature. 2013 Apr 17. doi: 10.1038/nature11992. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23594742.

I visited Ho Yu College in Hong Kong last month. A good mentor Dr. William Mak has been running a great biotechnology education program for the primary and secondary school students, as well as the public there. See an old post about their outreach program in which they fit a whole research lab into custom-built bus! I shared the research program of our laboratory at Purdue University on using zebrafish to screen drugs for vision benefit.

I outlined our approach on using simple visual behaviour assays to identify positive effects of drugs. I specifically emphasized on the potential to analyze many of traditional Chinese medicines; the treasure that we have been consuming for generations. Some of these possibilities are outlined in our recent review paper:

Zhang LY, Chong L, Cho J, Liao PC, Shen F, Leung YF. Drug Screening to Treat Early-Onset Eye Diseases: Can Zebrafish Expedite the Discovery? Asia-Pac J Ophthalmol 2012; 1:374-383. [Full text][pdf]

The interaction with the students was fantastic. They were very imaginative and eager to ask questions all the time! Their enthusiasm was infectious and is the driving force of scientific progress. That also reminded me of the problem of our education in stifling creativity when students are “educated”, which I wrote in a separate post recently.

This is truly an enjoyable experience and I look forward to visiting them again soon!

Genetics

1. Zu Y, Tong X, Wang Z, Liu D, Pan R, Li Z, Hu Y, Luo Z, Huang P, Wu Q, Zhu Z, Zhang B, Lin S. TALEN-mediated precise genome modification by homologous recombination in zebrafish. Nat Methods. 2013 Feb 24. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2374. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23435258.
2. Chang N, Sun C, Gao L, Zhu D, Xu X, Zhu X, Xiong JW, Xi JJ. Genome editing with RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease in Zebrafish embryos. Cell Res. 2013 Apr;23(4):465-72. doi: 10.1038/cr.2013.45. Epub 2013 Mar 26. PubMed PMID: 23528705; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3616424.

Retinal development

1. Chiodini F, Matter-Sadzinski L, Rodrigues T, Skowronska-Krawczyk D, Brodier L, Schaad O, Bauer C, Ballivet M, Matter JM. A Positive Feedback Loop between ATOH7 and a Notch Effector Regulates Cell-Cycle Progression and Neurogenesis in the Retina. Cell Rep. 2013 Mar 28;3(3):796-807. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.01.035. Epub 2013 Feb 21. PubMed PMID: 23434507.

Eye diseases

1. From the Telegraph: Eye drops could treat macular degeneration. Original article in Cell Metabolism: Impaired Cholesterol Efflux in Senescent Macrophages Promotes Age-Related Macular Degeneration.
2. From the Washington Post: First U.S. artificial retina approved; device could restore some sight to blind. FDA’s news release.

Neuroscience

1. Blackiston DJ, Levin M. Ectopic eyes outside the head in Xenopus tadpoles provide sensory data for light-mediated learning. J Exp Biol. 2013 Mar 15;216(Pt 6):1031-40. doi: 10.1242/jeb.074963. PubMed PMID: 23447666.
   • Commentary: Tadpoles See with Extra Eyes
   • Very interesting article. It demonstrates how tadpole can sense light by the innervation from an ectopic eye.

Recently I have got the privilege to share my research work with secondary school students. During the talk, it was obvious to me  that the younger the students were, the more imaginative the questions that they could come up with and the more fearless they were in asking questions. One reason is that the eduction has often encouraged students to give the “right answer”; otherwise, they will not get good grades. So, when the students are growing up, they quickly learn how to shut up and only seek ways to give the “right answer”. That reminds me of several great talks by Sir Ken Robinson on education, including a TED talk on how schools kill creativity that I shared here before, and an RSA talk on Changing Education Paradigms. The latter is a very thought-provoking talk,  and the RSA has made a nicely animated version of the key part:

Just come across these two great TED talks by Ben Goldacre that talks about how the information in scientific literature can be distorted and why not all information that is essential for medical advance can be found in the literature. It is really a flaw in the research system and human nature that positive and new findings will (preferentially) be rewarded. This has suppressed the appearance of negative findings and solid repeats that would validate ideas that would benefit human kinds. The reason behind this is partially because the scientists who conducted these kinds of studies will often be labeled non-productive (productive = getting positive findings) and non-innovative. Is there a solution to that?

Gene Therapy/Retinal degeneration

1. Cideciyan AV, Jacobson SG, Beltran WA, Sumaroka A, Swider M, Iwabe S, Roman AJ, Olivares MB, Schwartz SB, Komáromy AM, Hauswirth WW, Aguirre GD. Human retinal gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis shows advancing retinal degeneration despite enduring visual improvement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jan 22. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23341635.
   • News coverage: Another Bump in the Road to Gene Therapy?

Neuroscience

1. Muto A, Ohkura M, Abe G, Nakai J, Kawakami K. Real-Time Visualization of Neuronal Activity during Perception. Curr Biol. 2013 Jan 29. doi:pii: S0960-9822(13)00002-X. 10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.040. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23375894.
   • News coverage: See a Thought Move Through a Living Fish’s Brain
   • News coverage: Fluorescent protein lets us read a fish’s thoughts
   • More videos by the authors:

Genetics

1. Hwang WY, Fu Y, Reyon D, Maeder ML, Tsai SQ, Sander JD, Peterson RT, Yeh JR, Joung JK. Efficient genome editing in zebrafish using a CRISPR-Cas system. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Jan 29. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2501. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23360964.
2. Bedell VM, Wang Y, Campbell JM, Poshusta TL, Starker CG, Krug RG 2nd, Tan W, Penheiter SG, Ma AC, Leung AY, Fahrenkrug SC, Carlson DF, Voytas DF, Clark KJ, Essner JJ, Ekker SC. In vivo genome editing using a high-efficiency TALEN system. Nature. 2012 Nov 1;491(7422):114-8. doi: 10.1038/nature11537. Epub 2012 Sep 23. PubMed PMID: 23000899; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3491146.

you may get a pleasant surprise when you come back!

Evolution

1. Feuda R, Hamilton SC, McInerney JO, Pisani D. Metazoan opsin evolution reveals a simple route to animal vision. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Nov 13;109(46):18868-72. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204609109. Epub 2012 Oct 29. PubMed PMID: 23112152; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3503164.
   • News article:  Vision evolved 700 million years ago

Genetics

1. Cong L, Ran FA, Cox D, Lin S, Barretto R, Habib N, Hsu PD, Wu X, Jiang W, Marraffini LA, Zhang F. Multiplex Genome Engineering Using CRISPR/Cas Systems. Science. 2013 Jan 3. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23287718.
2. Mali P, Yang L, Esvelt KM, Aach J, Guell M, Dicarlo JE, Norville JE, Church GM. RNA-Guided Human Genome Engineering via Cas9. Science. 2013 Jan 3. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23287722.
   • News coverage: Cheap, easy technique to snip DNA could revolutionize gene therapy
   • News coverage: Editing the genome with high precision

In December 2012, I was invited to give a plenary lecture in the CUHK Ophthalmology Forum 2012 cum HKEH 20th Anniversary Symposium at the Hong Kong Eye Hospital.

Fai giving a plenary lecture on using zebrafish to find new drugs to treat eye diseases

This was a meeting right after the The 8^th International Symposium of Ophthalmology, in which I shared with a group of international delegates about our vision on screening drugs to treat eye diseases with the zebrafish model. Many delegates stayed behind to attend this CUHK and HKEH forum, in which we shared new insights into eye research and clinical practice.

Some of the participants to the forum, including Profs. Chris Leung (CUHK), Calvin Pang (CUHK), Clement Tam (CUHK), Stanley Chi (HKEH), Zibing Jin (Wenzhou eye hospital), Wei Li (NEI), Yuk Fai Leung (Purdue), Neeru Gupta (University of Toronto), and Tien Yin Wong (Singapore National Eye Centre). The full schedule of the meeting is available here.

Saying good bye to Prof. Neeru Gupta

Giving presentation award to graduate students