postdoctoral fellow position available (SOLD OUT!)

We are searching a postdoctoral fellow willing to join us in the frame of the founded project UPMC EMERGENCE 2011 on cardiac wasting. The location is Paris (at the UNiversity Pierre et Maire Curie) in 2012. Please, refer to the online flyer for additional information.

EXPERIMENTAL MODELS AVAILABLE IN THE LAB (2011)

A quick overview of the experimental models currently available in the lab to study the hormonal control of muscle differentiation and homostasis

LAB METHODS: Assessing cell number with a counting chamber

A Chamber with a View...each one has a different one. Supposedly trivial, estimating the number of cells in a cell suspension is matter of never-ending debates in our labs, that's why we finally wrote instructions for either a Thoma or a Malassez chamber, two widely used options in the lab.

LAB METHODS: Cardiac Stem Cell Isolation

Claudia Serradifalco, a PhD student from our collaborators' laboratory at the University of Palermo, has established in Paris their simple and elegant method to obtain Cardiac Stem Cells from adult rat hearts (link to the original paper by Di Felice et al.) by adapting the procedure to our laboratory. Here is the modified protocol...

Blind tasting session at the lab

To welcome a new PhD student in the lab, we organized a tasting session of charcuterie. This included a celebrated home-made fois gras and several salami from different countries. The latter were married to Chardonnay-based wines, a Mersault 1er cru 2008 A. Bouteller and a Chablis VV 2010 Vaucher & fils. For the fois gras I proposed an Alsace Gewurztraminer 2006, moelleux and traditional, by Schueller. A blind testing session concerned four salami and four sausages from the following countries and regions: A) Spain, Cataluna; B) France, Auvergne; C) France, Aveyron; D) Italie, Lombardia (Varzi) and Lazio (Cassino)

Most loved: Category “saucisson (big salami)”: region Avyron (France), producer Linard; Category “saucisse (small sausage)”: region cataluna (Spain)

ARTICLES: Teodori et al. Chimica e Industria 2011

THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE: SHARING OR EXCLUDING? THE “NEW BIOTECHNOLOGY DIVIDE”: AN ALARMING PERSPECTIVE OF SCIENTIFIC DUAL USE Linked to the title above, you can find the full version of our paper on biotech divide, an emerging issue related to recent advances in information technology (IT). The role of scientists is of paramount importance in understanding and predicting the impact of their research in issues related to the threat of conflicts inherent in a polarized society. They must increase their own awareness of these issues and better inform the political community by advising and helping to assess programs of cooperation that will lead to more equitable access to benefits and reduce inequalities driven by the technology divide. This article will focus on the use, distribution, and accessibility of research outcomes in one particular area of biotechnology, i.e. technology related to health care. We have identified some biotechnological barriers, given some specific examples of positive action in the field of our expertise in bridging such a divide and highlighted the direction we believe should be followed.

CLASSES, LECTURES ETC: REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

Linked here you can find a presentation dealing with regenerative medicine (in French/ oui, en Français!) for the master students in "Molecules and therapeutic targets". The presentation consists of three parts: 1) stem cells and their therapeutic use 2) what is tissue engineering 3) strategies of the regenerative medicine: in situ regeneration, stem cell transplantation, transplantation of pre-assembled organs. A similar lesson, more focused on tissue engineering (Englligh version) is visible here. Learning about the outstanding capacity of regeneration shown by the newt will allow the full regeneration of human organs? Hopefully better than what we are currently doing.

IS THIS BLOG GOING TO BE SHOT DOWN?

What is going on in Italy? Today, the Italian Wikipedia is ON STRIKE and one has only access to this sober communicate (screen image from the Wikipedia homepage http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Comunicato_4_ottobre_2011 )

Unfortunately, this communicate is in italian, so I will try to summarize it below. The Italian parliament is discussing a bill to strongly limit the publication of texts deriving from phone call tapping used in trials. Wikipedia cites the text of the bill and remarks that a modification of the bill proposed this morning will force the responsible of a web site to rectify within 48h a given information that is possibly considered incorrect by anyone who finds this information as negatively affecting his image. All this by default, without any third party judging the dispute. It is feared that the easiness of the censoring action will discourage everybody from saying just anything on anyone, in sharp contrast with the article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All this happens while the bill to help the agonizing Italian economy is postponed. If you have recently read the content of hot conversations between our Prime Minister and his friends reported worldwide by media, you may imagine the reason why such bill is more urgent than boosting the economy. Indeed, I find reasonable to foresee the risk that such a proposed bill will affect any web site posting free contributions related to whatever subject, including this blog which has hosted in the past political opinions and analyses (concerning science in most of the cases). Shall I shoot it down rather than checking every 48 h not to have received an injunction of rectification?

ARTICLES: Perniconi et al. Biomaterials 2011

In this paper in press we show that one can transplant ghosts of tissues to obtain again the corresponding tissue in mice. Our "ghosts" are acellular scaffolds derived by whole organ decellularization (in 1% SDS) of skeletal muscles (the EDL and the TA). Therefore, they represent the extracellular matrix voided of the cellular component. We show that this biomaterial has niche properties, since it is able to support neomyogenesis once transplanted to replace the matching muscle.

LAB METHODS: transplantation of an acellular scaffold to replace the corresponding muscle

We are about to publish a paper where we characterize the in vivo response to a graft composed by an acellular scaffold obtained by a previously decellularized skeletal muscle. The grafting procedure is now available as a ppt - link embedded in the title of this post. The corresponding video on how to replace a TA with the corresponding acellular scaffold(iPod version) is available through the link in parentheses. For an alternative format, try to click here (avi version). The video is supplemented as Additional materilas to the Biomaterials article.

LAB METHODS: Toluidine blue staining

There is no staining method as fast and informative (two for the price of one!) as the Toluidine blue staining. We use it while cryosectioning or while doing semithin sections to monitor sample quality and orientation. Toluidine specifically stains some cell and ECM features. Linked to the title of this post, you'll find our method for Toluidine staining, with references and additional examples. Fig. legend: Toluidine-stained skeletal muscle cryosections.

Research fundings: an update...

Well...I was too pessimistic. The fundings for the Fiscal Year 2009 ("PRIN 2009") has been released by the Italian Ministry of University and Research , with a delay of only three years and not four years, as I was foreseeing.
That's good news, worth at least a bottle of Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Giustino B. by Ruggeri!
That is also a good chance to have a look at what the USA are doing. Linked to the title is the analysis of the current presidential plan for R&D in that country. President Obama requested $ 147,696 bilion for research in the current Fiscal Year. With this rate they will DOUBLE the fundings in 11 years. Linked to the title, please find the full text of the analysis of this plan.

Left:
Research & Develoment funding path in the USA

Source:
Federal Research end Development Funding - FY 2011
JF Sargent jr., coordinator, specialist in Science and Technology Policy
June 10, 2011

Blind tasting session at the lab

To celebrate a few recent events (the UPMC Emergence 2011 grant, the Mol Endocrinol paper) and to welcome a new student in the lab, we have tasted five Bordeaux 2006 wines, from different appellations characterized by marked nuances of their terroirs and specific grape assembly. Given that the different wineyards are only about 50 Km from each other, the differences were outstanding.

Results of the blind tasting (panel : laboratory members):

1st Château-Haut Maurac, Médoc Cru Bourgeois (60 % Cabernet sauvignon, 40 % Merlot)
2nd Château Musset Chevalier , Saint Emillon Grand cru (50 % Merlot noir / 45 % Cabernet-Franc / 5 % Cabernet-Sauvignon )
3rd Les Hauts du Tertre, Margaux (55 % Cabernet sauvignon, 20 % Merlot, 20 % Cabernet franc, 5 % Petit verdot)
4th Château Prieuré-les-Tours, Graves.

We liked the winner for its intense bouquet of red fruits and its full body, with mature tannins and a long lasting aftertaste. One more cru Borgeois showing the great quality/price ratio of this category. From the color to the marked tannins it expressed the Medoc pretty well. However, I preferred the Margaux of Les Hauts de Tertre, a second wine produced by Château du Tertre, for its elegance and its more floreal bouquet. Margaux came out in the good balance between tannins, acidity and alcoolic warmth. The superb roundness of the Libournais St Emillon and the acidity of the Graves (Alas! - in such a poor interpretation) came out as well, but nobody guessed the crus for all the wines.

ARTICLES: Toschi et al. Mol Endocrinol 2011

In this paper, entitled "SKELETAL MUSCLE REGENERATION IN MICE IS STIMULATED BY LOCAL OVEREXPRESSION OF
V1a-VASOPRESSIN RECEPTOR", we identify skeletal muscle as a physiological target of hormones of the vasopressin (AVP) family and show a novel in vivo role for vasopressin-dependent pathways. FIG LEGEND In red Myc (i.e. overexpressed V1a-R) immunolocalization in skeletal muscle fibers highlighted by laminin staining in green.

In the last 10 years, we have characterized in detail AVP signaling pathways in myogenic cells in vitro. Also, we have reported that the muscle specific, V1a, AVP-receptor is modulated during myogenic differentiation in vivo, which suggest a role in muscle development. Consistently, we have shown that AVP intramuscular injection enhances muscle regeneration, a process which recapitulates muscle development in the adult.
With the last paper by Toschi et al. we formally demonstrate the biological role of AVP on skeletal muscle homeostasis and we pinpoint some molecular mechanisms underlying this effect, including calcineurin-mediated IL-4 production in the musculature in response to AVP.

FIG LEGEND role of Calcineurin-dependent effects of V1a-R overexpression on muscle regeneration. Further links to the press which cited the article: ANSA and Corriere della Sera

Against cuts in cultural funding

Again a non scientific, still relevant post insomuch as politics affect culture, research and education.

Cuts on culture and arts.
We have recently celebrated the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. As reported by the New York Times, a very intense moment occurred when Riccardo Muti conducted the "Va pensiero" at the premiere of Verdi's “Nabucco” at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome in March, in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Mayor of the capital.
The issue was the heavy cut plan on cultural founding performed by the current government. The event had its climax at Muti's brief statements against this plan while introducing an exceptional bis of the "Va pensiero". Linked to the title of this post there is the touching video on youtube.

Cuts and management of university funding.
University budget cuts represent the other branch of the current harmful intervention on state budget, in a country which spending on university is already very low as compared to most other countries, as reported by the BBC last year. However, it is not only a matter of budget. What is even worse is the total incertitude for the CURRENT available fundings: in 2011 we are still waiting for the results of a major funding call of the Italian Ministry for the University and Research (MIUR) which is called PRIN 2009 and was released in 2010! In 2012, if and when some groups will receive the grants to which they applied three years before, what will remain to be accomplished of the proposed research projects? Won't the latter be born already aged and out to date?
A lucid analysis on the inceritude which reigns on italian university has been published a few months ago on the web pages of lavoce.info (in Italian).

CLASSES, LECTURES ETC: Mechanisms controlling skeletal muscle homeostasis

Linked to the title there is a lesson for Master students (in English) on the mechanisms controlling skeletal muscle homeostasis.

OVERVIEW:

SKELETAL MUSCLE HOMEOSTASIS, HYPERTROPHY AND ATROPHY
The skeletal muscle tissue accounts for the majority of our body mass, nonetheless, the amount of skeletal muscle can vary significantly throughout life. There are specific mechanisms finely tuning the exact amount of muscle that we have at a given time.These are apparent in conditions far from homeostasis, i.e. when we have an excessive growth (hypertrophy) or reduction (atrophy) of muscle fibers. Throughout the presentation, I also try to state the case that not only muscle protein metabolism is important for controlling muscle homeostasis but also muscle stem cells support a "flow" of myogenic cells contributing to the maintenance of muscle fibers.

EXPERIMENTAL MODELS FOR STUDYING SKELETAL MUSCLE HOMEOSTASIS
Where I presents different approaches to study the regulation of muscle differentiation, growth and repair in vitro and in vivo.

MUSCLE ATROPHY, WASTING, CACHEXIA
Where I present different forms of muscle fiber atrophy and present in detail the features of the most severe form of muscle wasting, the syndrome of cachexia.


ENDURANCE EXERCISE & PROTEIN METABOLISM
Where I present some experimental data on exercise effects on muscle metabolism and homeostasis in physiological and pathological conditions.

MUSCLE REGENERATION IN PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS
Where I presents mechanisms whereby skeletal muscle regeneration is affected in cachexia, ultimately providing the molecular explanation for an important deficit in muscle regenerative capacity accounting for loss of muscle mass.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Glass D. 2003 Molecular mechanisms modulating muscle mass

Moseri V. 2010 Myogenin and calss II HDACs control neurogenic muscle atrophy by inducing E3 ubiquitin ligases

Musaro` A. 2004 Stem cell mediated muscle regeneration is enhanced by local isoform of Insulin-like Growth Factor 1

Zhou X. 2010 Reversal of cancer cachexia and muscle wasting by ActRIIB antagonism leads to prolonged survival

The Real Face of Death

A creative, funny interpretation of a real TEM image representing an eucariotic cell in culture undergoing apoptosis (programmed cell death). Apoptosis major features are represented in this photomicrograph: loss of cell attachment, but maintenance of cell integrity, cell shrinkage, nuclear fragmentation and chromatin condensation.