Meet the PI
Managing Director (Speaker) - Physics of Life Excellence Cluster
Professor & Chair of Tissue Dynamics, Physics of Life Excellence Cluster, TU Dresden
Fellow, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Questions:
What is the research focus of your lab?
We study how embryonic tissues are physically sculpted during embryogenesis. Essentially, we are interested in the physical and mechanical aspects of tissue morphogenesis, but we are also very excited about the connection between the genetic, molecular and mechanical aspects underlying tissue and organ development
How long have you been working with zebrafish? How long have you had your own lab?
I have been working with zebrafish for 11 years now, and I had my own lab for 11 years too. So, I started working with zebrafish when I set up my new lab because it was the organism best suited to answer the questions I was interested in. Before starting my lab, I had a crash course on zebrafish at the MBL Embryology course, but I had never worked with zebrafish in my research projects as PhD student or postdoc (I was a theorist for all my PhD and the early part of my postdoc).
Getting to know you better
Where were you born/where did you grow up?
I was born in Barcelona and grew up in a small coastal town between Barcelona and the French border, on the beautiful stretch of coast known as Costa Brava.
Tell us something about yourself in one sentence.
I obsess too much about things I care about.
Science
Which of the current projects in your lab you are most excited about?
This is a difficult question. We all know that scientific projects take a lot of time and energy, so I carefully choose projects that I am excited about. If I am not excited about something, I do not work on it.
What advice would you give to someone considering a career in science/research?
It is very difficult to give general advice because people have different life experiences and good advice for some may not be good for others. However, to me there is one simple piece of advice that tends to work: only pursue a career in science if you are truly passionate about understanding how nature works.
Which part of the PI job you enjoy the most? Why?
This is an easy one: spending time discussing and doing science with my lab members. This is the fun and exciting part of the job in my opinion.
Outside of work
What do you enjoy doing outside of work/lab?
At this moment I enjoy the most spending time with my two young children. I also enjoy (macro) photography and cooking, and watching good comedy TV shows. I actually like cooking enough that I brought it to the lab to teach physics while a postdoc at Harvard. There, I spearheaded the Science and Cooking initiative and cofounded the Science and Cooking class that is still being taught today. It was a lot of fun to mix two passions.
What career would you have liked if you were not a scientist?
Architecture. I like design a lot and I find the challenges in architecture very interesting.
Present situation
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your lab and work?
It has been quite complex, as for many other labs. When the pandemic started, my lab was at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and we had to close down the lab completely for 3-4 months. After this, the university would only allow labs to work at 10% capacity and the PIs could not be in their offices (unless for teaching duties). Both my wife and I are faculty and it was very difficult to take care of our young children (daycares were completely closed), maintain our research active and also teach remotely. It was a very hard period for my lab members too, especially for the experimentalists, who could barely do experiments and move their projects along. It took a long time after the university allowed labs to fully reopen to recover the lab dynamics. In addition, I moved the lab in the middle of the pandemic to the Physics of Life Excellence Cluster at TU Dresden, Germany. Moving the lab at that point was hard, but it also served as a breaking point from the pandemic dynamics. Now, we are nearly back to normal, but it has been a very difficult period.
In general, I think the pandemic has been brutal for scientists with care responsibilities of young children (or other dependants). I really wished we had better systems to help these parents and we collectively cared more for them.
Professor of College of Life Sciences
Zhejiang University
Hangzhou, China
Questions:
What is the research focus of your lab?
My lab focuses on studying liver development and regeneration using zebrafish as a model system. Specifically, we find that a number of genes encoding nucleolar proteins are essential for liver development in zebrafish. Mechanism-wise, we find that these nucleolar proteins are involved not only in the biogenesis of the ribosome small subunit but also in regulating the cell cycle directly. For example, we find that Bms1 interacts with Ttf1 and displaces Ttf1 from the replication-fork barrier sites to balance the replication and transcription at the rDNA loci at S-phase. In addition, we find that nucleolar protein Def (also called Utp25) recruits cysteine proteinase Calpain3 into the nucleolus to form the nucleolar-localized Def-Capn3 protein cleavage pathway which targets p53, Wee1 and Chk1 to regulate cell cycle during liver development. Based on studying Calpain3, we determined the molecular mechanism responsible for the ‘genetic compensation response’ mediated by the activation of homologous genes.
How long have you been working with zebrafish? How long have you had your own lab?
My lab has been working with zebrafish since 2001. I established my own lab in 1999.
Getting to know you better
Where were you born/where did you grow up?
Born and grew up in Jiangsu Province, China.
Tell us something about yourself in one sentence.
I love genetics because genetics never lies, however, digging out the mechanism needs tremendous effort.
Science
Which of the current projects in your lab you are most excited about?
We are especially excited by our finding of the nucleolar-localized Def-Capn3 protein degradation pathway and are extending the biological significances of our finding by exploring the role of the Def-Capn3 pathway in liver regeneration.
What advice would you give to someone considering a career in science/research?
Nature is full of wonders which are waiting for you to explore. Don’t just follow others’ steps; trust yourself to find and walk on your own path.
Which part of the PI job you enjoy the most? Why?
Supervising students. Because they always inspire you to think, to read, to learn, to summarize.
Outside of work
What do you enjoy doing outside of work/lab?
When I was young, I liked to play badminton and gardening. Now, I still like gardening. Meanwhile, now I like excursions in the countryside.
What career would you have liked if you were not a scientist?
Gardener
Present situation
How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected your lab and work?
COVID-19 halted face-to-face communication with our colleagues, which is the origin of sparks