On August 1st, 2008, the decission on the ISTT Travel Awards for the TT2008 Meeting in Toronto were communicated to the interested participants and ISTT Members. Exceptionally, due to the number (22) of submissions received and the high quality of the applications the ISTT has decided to award eight ISTT Members, instead of the announced six, each of which will receive a nominal cheque of 500 Euros and a diploma, during the award ceremony in Toronto.
The new Jackson Laboratory mouse sperm cryopreservation protocol has just been published in PloS ONE today (July 30, 2008). The title and authors of this publication are:
Conserving, Distributing and Managing Genetically Modified Mouse Lines by Sperm Cryopreservation
G. Charles Ostermeier (1,2), Michael V. Wiles (1), Jane S. Farley (2), Robert A. Taft (2)
(1) Technology Evaluation and Development, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, United States of America. (2) Reproductive Sciences, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, United States of America
At the forthcoming TT2008 Meeting, to be held in Toronto (Canada) on October 27-29, 2008, there is a Mouse Genome Infomartics (MGI) Workshop organized.
Right after the TT2008 meeting ends, on Wednesday October 29 afternoon, we will be hosting a two-hour bioinformatics workshop led by the Mouse Genome Informatics (MGI) team from the Jackson Labooratory. Computers with internet access will be provided to all attendees.
This workshop is appropriate for all levels, from undergraduate to principal investigator, and benefit new and experienced MGI users alike. Workshop is hands-on and will include among other topics how to:
• Find mouse models of human disease
• Identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), PCR polymorphisms and biological sequences specific to selected mouse strains
• Locate quantitative trail loci (QTL) associated with a specific phenotype
• View mouse markers, alleles and phenotypes mapped onto a genome browser
• Find gene expression assays and images for specific anatomical structures and developmental stages
• View terms describing the molecular function, biological process and cellular component of a gene, and retrieve a list of genes annotated with a specific Gene Ontology (GO) term.
The number of participants we can accommodate will be very limited, so we urge anyone interested to apply as soon as possible. Please apply by sending your current CV, a recommendation letter stating why you should attend this course, and a letter from you describing how you will make use of what you will learn to the following address: tt2008@mshri.on.ca
All documents should be sent by email, but your recommendation letter should be sent from your referees email address.
The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) has reached 250 Members in June 2008. Our Society was founded in 2006, although the initial discussions towards the foundation of ISTT started right after the TT2005 Meeting held in Barcelona.
We finished our first year, 2006, with 125 members, increased to 220 members in 2007, when we had the TT2007 Meeting, held in Brisbane (Australia), and now, in June 2008, we have doubled our initial number of members and we are currently more than 250 members distributed world-wide.
The ISTT is a very active Society, organising, promoting and sponsoring meetings, symposia, courses and workshops. Among other activities, from the ISTT we have promoted/co-organised or co-sponsored events in: Brisbane, London, Houston, Sao Paulo, Montevideo and Toronto.
The next Transgenic Technology (TT2008) meeting, the main activity of ISTT, will be held in Toronto (Canada), on October 27-29, 2008. We look forward to meeting all of you there.
If you would like to become ISTT Member, please visit this WEB site and follow the indications.
The International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT) co-sponsors an International Course on “Genetics of Laboratory Rodents” that will be held at the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (Uruguay) on November 24th - December 5th, 2008.
This EMBO course is organized by the Unidad de Animales Transgénicos y Experimentación of the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo and the Unité de Génétique Fonctionelle de la Souris of the Institut Pasteur de Paris.
The Course program includes the following invited speakers and tutors:
Jean Jacques Panthier, IP-Paris, France
Xavier Montagutelli, IP-Paris, France
Jean Louis Guenet, IP-Paris, France
Jean Jaubert, IP-Paris, France
Michel Cohen-Tannoudji, IP-Paris, France
Marcelo Rubinstein, INGEBI, Argentina
Fernando Benavides, MD Anderson CC, USA
Werner Mueller, Univ. Manchester, UK
Jose Eduardo Krieger, Instituto do Coração–USP, Brazil
Luiz Augusto Corrêa Passos, CEMIB-UNICAMP, Brazil
Mariela Bollati, IP Montevideo, Uruguay
Martina Crispo, IP Montevideo, Uruguay
Martina Crispo (member of ISTT) is the Organizer of this course
At the ISTT, and according to members’ proposal, we have prepared another CHAT session that will be devoted this time to discuss about “Lentiviral Transgenesis“.
This session is organised and will be moderated by:
Shirley Pease
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Genetically Engineered Mouse Services
Pasadena, CA, USA
CHAT session will be held at the ISTT CHAT on Wednesday, June 18 at 20:00 GMT
Confirmed Invited pannelist experts are:
Carlos Lois
Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Cambridge, MA, USA
Bill Ritchie
Consulting Embryologist
Roslin Embriology Limited
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Oded Singer
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Laboratory of Genetics
San Diego, CA, USA
The chat sesssion will take place at the following time-table:
23:00 Athens
22:00 Madrid, Rome, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Stockholm
21:00 London, Lisboa
20:00 GMT
17:00 Sao Paulo
16:00 Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Bethesda, Bar Harbor (US East Coast)
15:00 Houston, Chicago
14:00 Denver
13:00 Los Angeles, California (US West Coast)
10:00 Honolulu
01:30 New Delhi, on next day: June 19st
04:00 Perth, on next day: June 19st
05:00 Tokyo, on next day: June 19st
06:00 Melbourne, Brisbane on next day: June 19st
08:00 Auckland, on next day: June 19st
You can check in this WEB for additional meeting times across the world.
If you are not already an ISTT Member, you can join the ISTT to participate in the CHAT session.
The transgenic-list (tg-l), the reference channel of discussions on scientific and technical issues related to the generation and analysis of transgenic animals and transgenic research in general, established in its current format since July 1996 by Peter Sobieszczuk, has become the official list of the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (ISTT).
To illustrate this agreement, established between Peter Sobieszczuk (as the tg-list owner and therefore responsible person of the list) and Lluis Montoliu (as President of the ISTT) the ISTT will recommend and promote the use of tg-list to discuss any topic related with transgenic research. Likewise, the tg-list will announce this agreement in all messages, with a link to the ISTT WEB site.
The TT2008 Meeting program has been updated, now including a session on basic techniques, inmediately before the classical round-table discussion on “Running a transgenic unit”. Please check the TT2008 Meeting WEB site for latest announcements.
Topics that will be covered in this “Basic techniques” new session include: Embryo transfer, vasectomy and ceasarean section, ES cell culture and derivation, Pronuclear and blastocyst injection and Artificial chromosome-type transgenes.
Important deadlines for the TT2008 meeting are:
Early registration: July 1, 2008
Tetraploid aggregation course and MGI workshop: August 1, 2008
Abstract submission: July 20, 2008
Last registration: September 1, 2008. Registrations will not be accepted after this date
Niagara tour and pre-conference dinner: September 1, 2008
In addition, the ISTT sponsors up to six travel awards for ISTT Members willing to attend the TT2008 meeting. Deadline for submitting an application for these travel awards is: July 1, 2008
Recently, at the tg-list, it was discussed the issue of patents that apply in the standard ES cell work. Those patents include the usual positive-negative selection and the use of isogenic DNA. Of course, there are many more with modifications or alternative methodologies but I believe these two methodology are still the basic ones.
According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, these are the patents alive and active:
Positive-negative selection methods and vectors
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 5,464,764
Issued: November 7, 1995
Filed: February 4, 1993
Assignee: University of Utah Research Foundation (Salt Lake City, UT)
Cells and non-human organisms containing predetermined genomic modifications and positive-negative selection methods and vectors for making same
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 5,487,992
Issued: January 30, 1996
Filed: June 28, 1993
Assignee: University of Utah Research Foundation (Salt Lake City, UT)
Cells and non-human organisms containing predetermined genomic modifications and positive-negative selection methods and vectors for making same
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 5,627,059
Issued: May 6, 1997
Filed: June 5, 1995
Assignee: University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
Cells and non-human organisms containing predetermined genomic modifications and positive-negative selection methods and vectors for making same
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 5,631,153
Issued: May 20, 1997
Filed: June 5, 1995
Assignee: University of Utah (Salt Lake City, UT)
Cells and non-human organisms containing predetermined genomic modifications and positive-negative selection methods and vectors for making same
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 6,204,061
Issued: March 20, 2001
Filed: January 9, 1997
Assignee: University of Utah Research Foundation (Salt Lake City, UT)
Cells and non-human organisms containing predetermined genomic modifications and positive-negative selection methods and vectors for making same
Capecchi; Mario R., Thomas; Kirk R.
US Patent: 6,204,061
Issued: February 10, 2004
Filed: November 28, 2000
Assignee: University of Utah Research Foundation (Salt Lake City, UT)
Gene targeting in animal cells using isogenic DNA constructs
Berns; Anton, Robanus Maandag; Els, te Riele; Hein
US Patent: 5,789,215
Issued: August 4, 1998
Filed: August 7, 1997
Assignee: GenPharm International (San Jose, CA)
High efficiency gene targeting in mouse embryonic stem cells
Berns; Anton, Robanus Maandag; Els, te Riele; Hein
US Patent: 6,653,113
Issued: November 25, 2003
Filed: February 19, 1999
Assignee: Genpharm International, Inc. (Mountain View, CA)