Blog from May, 2017

IZFS 2017 Election

Dear Zebrafish Community:

The International Zebrafish Society (IZFS) is currently hosting an election. If you are interested in voting and are not an IZFS member, click here to join. Ballots close on Friday, June 23, 2017 at 11:59pm EST. For questions email the IZFS Administrator, Monika Dezhbod at mdezhbod@izfs.org. We look forward to your participation.

 

Thank you,

Monika Dezhbod 

After 2.5 years of assembly curation, the GRC presents the new zebrafish reference genome assembly, GRCz11 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/assembly/GCA_000002035.4/). This latest assembly has been refined by the addition of nearly 1000 finished clone sequences and the resolution of more than 400 genome issues. GRCz11 shows a significant reduction in scaffold numbers and increase in scaffold N50 whilst the overall genome size was not affected. For the first time in a zebrafish assembly, GRCz11 also features alternate loci scaffolds (ALT_REF_LOCI) for representations of variant sequences. The alignments of the alternate loci scaffolds to the primary chromosomal path are also included in the GRCz11 assembly to provide the chromosome context for these alternate sequences.

 

For more details, please have a look at http://genomeref.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/grcz11-latest-zebrafish-reference.html

 

Browsing Images

An improved version of image browsing has been available for a while, but sometimes it gets overlooked.  Which is a shame, because it's easy to use and pretty fun, too.  

So here's a reminder:  

 In single-box search, the following categories have an image browsing option :

To begin browsing figure images, click the "Browse Images" button at the top of search results:

 

This will change the results display to show figure image thumbnails instead of the usual linked text results summaries.  All of the search facets for the current category are still shown on the left side of the page and can be used in the same way as usual.  

Clicking any of the thumbnails in the display will show an enlarged single-image view along with links to the associated figure, genes, fish, publication etc. You can page through enlarged images using arrows in the left- and right- margins.  To return to mult-image thumbnail view, click outside the box or on the "X" at the upper-right side of the view.

To leave image browsing mode and return to standard texty results, click the "See all ... results" button:

 

We invite all zebrafish researchers to register and submit abstracts  for the 2017 Midwest Zebrafish Meeting closes on May 12, 2017. The meeting will be held in Cincinnati on June 16-18 and focuses on zebafish as a model system for developmental biology, genetics and human diseases.  Participation of trainees and junior principal investigators is particularly encouraged.  Aside from invited speakers, all talks will be selected from the submitted abstracts. Also, please consider submitting abstracts to the Technology Workshop session, which will focus on the genome editing and other current technologies.

 

Meeting website:

 

https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/zebrafish

 

Featured Speakers

Stephen C. Ekker, Professor, Mayo Clinic

S. Steven Potter, Professor, Cincinnati Children's Hospital

Liliana Solnica-Krezel, Professor, Washington University (St. Louis)

 

Featured Sessions

 

Early Development and Patterning

Organogenesis

New Technologies for Studying Development

Neural Development

Zebrafish as a Disease Model

 

Important Deadlines

 

Abstract Submission - May 12

Registration (early)  - May 12

Registration (late) - June 1

Zebrafish as Models in Biomedical Research: Focus on Gene, Brain and Behaviour

Dates 14-18 August 2017

Application deadline 1 June 2017

http://www.ru.nl/radboudsummerschool/courses/2017/zebrafish-models-biomedical-research-focus-gene/