IZFS Webinars
About | Upcoming Webinars | Previous Webinars | Sponsors | Sponsorship Opportunities
In April 2020, the International Zebrafish Society (IZFS) launched the IZFS Webinar Series. The series includes a variety of research and professional development topics. The content of the webinars is designed for researchers from every career level and to share the latest scientific findings, methods, technologies, and products to facilitate research. The format provides direct access to experts in the field in an interactive online setting.
Webinar registration is free to all IZFS members. Non-members may participate in each webinar for a fee of $25.00 USD. To register for webinars, please click here. If you have never been a member and would like to join, please click here. If your membership has lapsed and you would like to renew to participate in the webinars, please click here.
Upcoming Webinars
Studying Hematopoiesis & Solid Tumors in Zebrafish
Presented by the Canadian Research Community
Featuring - Joey Ghersi, PhD and Madeline Hayes, PhD
January 23, 2025
2:00pm - 3:00pm EST | Find your time here
Defining the origin of blood stem cell heterogeneity
Joey Ghersi, PhD
Group Leader
CHU Sainte Justine
Assistant Professor
Department of Pathology and Cell Biology
University of Montreal
@joey_ghersi @joeyghersi.bsky.social
Stem cell populations across tissues, long thought to be homogeneous, have been identified as heterogeneous. Heterogeneity is defined by diverse phenotypic and functional cell characteristics. Stem cell heterogeneity must be properly regulated, or it can lead to lineage-biased progeny and a decreased capacity to repopulate tissues during regeneration. Single-cell sequencing analyses show that adult hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) are a heterogeneous mixture of multipotent stem and progenitor cells that differ in cell cycle status, transcriptional lineage priming, and blood lineage outputs. Reprogramming of somatic cells to HSPCs has been the holy-grail for autologous transplantation, a lifesaving therapy against a variety of blood cancers. These cells show variations in self-renewal kinetics and lineage priming biases that can compromise the balanced reconstitution of blood and immune cells after transplantation. Diverse HSPC phenotypes are observed during development in the aorta gonad mesonephros (AGM) of the embryo, where HSPCs are first made. These data suggest that HSPCs are “born heterogeneous”. However, the basis of this intrinsic heterogeneity of HSPCs remains unknown. Uncovering this mechanism will help inform new strategies to regulate HSPC phenotypes ex-vivo and in-vivo. We discovered that signaling in endothelial cells, before the endothelial to hematopoietic transition, regulates HSPC heterogeneity in the embryo and adult zebrafish (Nat Cell Bio, 2023). We found that loss of the microRNA in endothelial cells, miR-128, alters the composition of these HSPC states. miR-128 directly inhibits the activity of Wnt– and Notch-signaling in endothelial cells. Mechanistically, single-cell RNA-sequencing revealed that Wnt regulation, instructs the transdifferentiation of replicative and erythroid-biased HSPCs. In contrast, Notch regulation programs lymphoid-biased HSPCs. These results showed that coordinated regulation of multiple signaling pathways in endothelial cells, ultimately controls HSPC heterogeneity. We propose that HSPC heterogeneity is established in the AGM endothelium prior to transdifferentiation and is programmed in part by Wnt and Notch signaling modulation.
Patient-specific in vivo modeling of high-risk extracranial pediatric solid tumors
Madeline Hayes, PhD
Group Leader
SickKids
Assistant Professor
Department of Molecular Genetics
University of Toronto
Precision oncology programs have revolutionized our ability to understand pediatric cancers on a genetic level. However, functional roles for novel variants in tumor progression and treatment response remain poorly understood. My lab focuses on using zebrafish and human cell-based models to interrogate roles for variants identified in patients with aggressive pediatric solid tumors, including neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. Our recent findings demonstrate important roles for DNA Damage Response (DDR) genes in neuroblastoma pathogenesis and have led to the identification of novel therapeutic combinations to target these tumors. Furthermore, our models implicate less differentiated mesenchymal-like cells in solid tumor metastasis and I will discuss how we are using various in vivo tools to characterize aggressive tumor cell types, with the goal of identifying effective candidate therapies for future translation to early-phase clinical trials.
Previous Webinars
For a complete list of our archived webinars, please click here
Current members may access the recorded webinars by logging into the "members-only" portal
Webinar Sponsorship Opportunities
This educational format provides a unique opportunity for potential sponsors to connect with the most influential group of fish researchers in a virtual setting. The content of the webinars is designed to attract researchers from every career level and to share the latest scientific findings, methods, technologies and products to facilitate their research work. With this virtual format, sponsors not only have exposure to attendees accessing the live webinars, but additional exposure and continued visibility as webinars are archived on the IZFS website and available to members to view on demand.
Explore the Sponsorship Opportunities Here
Please reach out to Alyssa Gluth at agluth@izfs.org with any questions.