Víctor Gallego logra un nuevo contrato postdoctoral

Al igual que hace dos años, nuestro compañero Víctor ha conseguido, gracias a su excelente curriculum, uno de los 7 contratos postdoctorales ofertados en la última convocatoria de la Universitat Politècnica de València.

La UPV financiará dos tercios de su contrato durante los próximos dos años, durante los que ampliará su formación y seguirá colaborando con nuestro grupo de investigación. Enhorabuena Vic! 

AQUAGAMETE COST Action ends

The AQUAGAMETE COST Action has officially ended. During its 4 years of duration, we have managed to achieve our main milestones, involving 450 researchers from 27 countries.

As most notable successes, we have continued the series of biennial International Workshop on the Biology of Fish Gametes (IWBFG), which started in 2007 and was the origin of this Action. Within the Action, the 4^th and 5^th editions were organized in Albufeira (Portugal, 2013) and in Ancona (Italy, 2015), respectively, showing a nice increase in the number of participants and number of countries involved.

The organization of 7 Training Schools has enabled 124 students and company representatives to learn about different topics related to fish gametes.

We have published, by now, a total of 44 scientific papers and one dissemination article. And we still have to finish the publication of the Proceedings of the 5^th IWBFG in General and Comparative Endocrinology, 10 review articles in Aquaculture, 7 videos with different protocols in JoVE, and a dissemination article with the main conclusions achieved during the Action.

Moreover, we have bet the COST record in number of Short Term Scientific Missions performed per Action period, with a total of 105 missions (personally, I think we should feel especially proud of these chances offered to our younger researchers).

We will continue updating the AQUAGAMETE webpage whenever we have news. 

Nuestro último artículo, publicado en Theriogenology

Embryonic development of the grass pufferfish (Takifugu niphobles): From egg to larvae

V. Gallego, M. Yoshida, D. Kurokawa, J.F. Asturiano, G.J. Fraser

Abstract

Tetraodontidae (pufferfish) family members carry the smallest genomes among vertebrates, and these pocket-sized genomes have directly contributed to our understanding of the structure and evolution of higher animals. The grass pufferfish (Takifugu niphobles) could be considered a potential new model organism for comparative genomics and development due to the potential access to embryos, and availability of sequence data for two similar genomes: that of spotted green pufferfish (Tetraodon nigroviridis) and Fugu (Takifugu rubripes). In this study, we provide the first description of the normal embryonic development of T. niphobles, by drawing comparisons with the closely related species cited above. Embryos were obtained by in vitro fertilization of eggs, and subsequent development was monitored at a constant temperature consistent with natural conditions. T. niphobles development was divided into seven periods of embryogenesis: the zygote, cleavage, blastula, gastrula, segmentation, pharyngula, and hatching periods; and stages subdividing these periods are morphological characteristics. The developmental stage series described in this study aims to provide the utilization of T. niphobles as an experimental model organism for comparative developmental studies.

doi: 10.1016/j.theriogenology.2016.12.005

2nd Annual IMPRESS Meeting

El 1 y 2 de diciembre acudimos a la segunda reunión anual de la ITN IMPRESS en Berlín, que reunió a los investigadores principales de los diferentes grupos de investigación participantes y los representantes de los 14 estudiantes que están haciendo su doctorado, Elena Santidrián y Christoffer Rozenfeld.

La primera sesión tuvo lugar en el Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) y el segundo día acudimos al Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB, en las dos fotos de arriba) en el que nuestros colegas Sven Würtz, Jörn Gessner y Robert Arlinghaus hicieron de anfitriones. Gracias!.

La tarea principal durante la reunión fue la de preparar el informe que el próximo 14 de diciembre debemos presentar en Bruselas, al alcanzarse en diciembre la mitad del proyecto. Así pues, hicimos un repaso de los avances conseguidos durante los trabajos de tesis de cada uno de los estudiantes y en cada uno de los subproyectos que constituyen esta ITN. También llevamos a cabo un análisis crítico de su Research and Training Programme, su estrategia de difusión y las posibilidades de interacción entre los distintos subproyectos.

Entre otros temas, Patrick Martin nos informó de los preparativos para la cuarta training school de IMPRESS, prevista para junio de 2017 en el Conservatoire National du Saumon Sauvage en Chanteuges (Francia).