Quinta GrandeThe Newsletter of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência

Welcome!Welcome to our first edition! We want this to be the first of many and hope to have your collaboration and suggestions to improve it further. Meanwhile, enjoy your reading!This edition is available on-line at: www.igc.gulbenkian.pt

November 2008 | Issue 1

bimonthly

In this edition:

• Outreach:

what is all about?

• IGC scientists

receive grant from

American charity

for transgenics

approach to

myopathy

• Matthew V.

Rockman: from Art

History to Biology

• Through the

keyhole: who was

Zheng Ho?

• Aaargh! A survival

guide

“The Beer Hunter”

Photo By Jocelyne Demengeot

This is the first issue of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, IGC, Newsletter, and I would advise you to hold on to it, for it will reach millions in e-bay auctions anytime after 2050, perhaps even as soon as 2010.Though it will feature science and scientists, the IGC Newsletter is not a scientific ma-gazine. Those involved in this initiative are absolutely right in this initiative to make the IGC better known to our partners, in the mission of “science communication and outreach”: teachers, journalists, institutions, business, all those who lead the way or help us bring more science to our society. As Martin Rees says, we cannot sit back as long as there are more astrologers than astronomers.The IGC is more, much more, than the sum of all the projects of scientific research and graduate education. If you made a list of everyone here, all the support services, all the projects, grants, papers, posters and oral communications, all the PhD programs and individual theses, of all the discoveries that are made here, all the seminars, workshops and conferences, the IGC would still be far more than that. Lisbon is not appropriate-ly described by the telephone list, even if you included all the mobile phones. Arnold Toynbee once wrote that you cannot take a picture of a “real” group: all you get is a picture with all the individuals in the group, but not its essence, that is, the relationships amongst the individuals. I would add that the picture also fails to reproduce the “spirit” that brought us together here, the commitment to science and the “way of doing things” that are so ours, the joy that working here continues to be, as well as of all the others who belong to the same IGC project but have moved elsewhere. I hope that this Newsletter will give glimpses of all that: rigorous but funny, truthful but not evangelical, simple but not conceding to carelessness. For all our partners, however, the best way to get to know us will always be to come and visit. Be certain in the knowledge that you will always be welcome.

AAAAGH! is for you, who missed the last train, searched the IGC for a ride, agonized over the cost of a cab and concluded that you really are stranded for the night. You’ve accepted your fate and are ready to tackle practicalities. Where to sleep, what to eat and “is there really a ghost that haunts the IGC”. AAAAGH! offers you some tips. You may simply opt for a trip to the vending machines or a scavenger hunt for cookies in yourcolleague’s drawers. There is no shame in these time-honored strategies. But it is also possible that you crave something more, in the outside world. And perhaps “what do I eat?” actually means “where can I drink?”It’s long past 1 AM and choices in the immediate surroundings are limited - a problem aggravated by the demise of the pita wagon by the elephant. The closest option is to walk to the Police Station (next to the Oeiras Train Station) and either a) slap a cop in the face and hope it gets you a bed and a free meal or b) walk a few meters further down to the Beer Hunter. Half english pub, half local bar, its open officially until 2 AM, but it’s not impossible to leave the lab well after 3 and still get served.The Beer Hunter is known for its burguers and on tap selection. The bar also boasts a snooker room, where at least one lab has discovered that the shy, quiet girl slaving away at the bench had a secret life as a hustler. For regular patrons the real sport is to gamble on the mood the mustached waiter. Give it a try, see what he thinks of you.(R.Santo António 6, 21 4430257. Closed on Tues.)

EditorialBy António Coutinho

a

AAAARGH! a survival guide

Have your say‘Quinta Grande’ aims to be a forum to communicate events and any news which may be of interest to those who work either at or with the IGC. If you have any suggestions of topics to be discussed here, please e-mail them to:quintagrande@igc.gulbenkian.pt.

Support ScienceIGC mugs and pins with images obtained by our researchers are nowavailable at the IGC and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, in Lisboa.

The ‘IGC Calendar 2009’ will be available soon. For more information please contact:Maria João Leãosupportus@igc.gulbenkian.pt

Quinta Grande, issue 1, November 2008Coordinator: Ana GodinhoEdition: Sílvia Castro Contributors: Ana Godinho; António Coutin-ho; Barbara Vreede; Jennifer Rowland; Moises Mallo; Thiago CarvalhoIIustration: Hugo AlmeidaGraphic design: Paulo EmilianoCirculation: 400Address: Rua da Quinta Grande, 62780-156 Oeiras, PortugalTelephone: +351 214 464 537Fax.: +351 214 407 970www.igc.gulbenkian.pt

GripenetThe online survey for Gripenet has already started.

You can join now and register at:http://www.gripenet.pt/

By Thiago Carvalho

Outreach – what’s it all about?By Ana Godinho

Researchers from the Transgenics Unit at the IGC have recently been awarded a three year grant from the “Advan-cement of Research for Myopathies” (ARM) charity based in California. The award will fund our team to in-vestigate the critical gene responsible for the pathology of Heterologous Inclusion Body Myopathy, HIBM, a progressive muscle wasting disease caused by mutations to UDP-N-Acetyl glucosamine (GNE). As for most ge-netic myopathies, much of the interna-tional effort to investigate HIBM has focused on the muscle compartment, aimed at restoring normal muscle function. However, we observed that

although mutations to GNE are the cause of this myopathy, GNE expres-sion is not detectable in the muscle.

In fact, the principal source of GNE activity in the adult comes from the li-ver where it plays a central role in the production of sialic acid.

These observations suggested that some endocrine mechanism of liver derived sialic acid distribution might be essential in muscle function. This project will explore this hypothesis using a conditional transgenics appro-ach to delete GNE expression in the liver or muscle compartment. For this project we welcome the technical help of a new colleague in the lab, Vanessa Barros Urbano.We anticipate that this work will provi-de critical information to direct better therapeutic approaches whilst provi-ding useful models for the evaluation of the efficacy of these approaches in the future.

New transgenics approach to develop better therapies for distal myopathy

By Jennifer Rowland and Moises Mallo

Increasingly, scientists are called on to leave the lab, to go out into the community to talk about their work to audiences of all ages. This is outreach, and at the IGC, outreach is taken seriously.In September and October we held two major outreach events: Researchers’ Night, at the Cultural Centre of Belém, and the IGC Open Day. Researchers’ Night is a European Com-mission-funded initiative. On an appointed day in September, outreach events take place across Europe, aimed at bringing scientists and the public together, in informal settings. The IGC was one of three partners in a consortium awarded €100,000 to carry out Researchers’ Night in Portugal, simultaneously in Lisbon and Oporto. Researchers’ Night is traditionally about letting the public expe-rience ‘science’ through hands-on experiments. We decided to add a few extras to our event at the CCB: a fundraising ‘walk for science’, speed-dating with scientists and a ‘scientists in real-time’ blog. Between 2pm and 1am, over 2,000 people visited the CCB, and €4,000 were raised for leukaemia research, to be awarded as grants and prizes by the charity Associação Portu-guesa Contra a Leucemia. Researchers’ Night brought together 100 researcher-volunteers, from different research fields and at different stages in their

careers. Some were speed-daters…others bloggers…others vo-lunteers for the hands-on experiments…and others still musi-cians in the scientists’ bands that played on the night. The Open Day, on the other hand, was all about giving the 1140

visitors (including over 200 Portugal Telecom staff) an opportunity to meet our researchers and gain some insight into the research that goes on at the IGC. From experiments and ga-mes (many of which designed by IGC scien-tists!), to lab tours and informal talks, the day underscored the interest that adults and chil-dren have for science in general, and the IGC,

in particular. Over 100 IGC researchers and sta-ff made the day possible, as well as sponsorship from Oeiras City Council, Bio-Rad and Roche.

Researchers’ Night could not have been possible without the commit-ment of the following organizations: Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular, Champalimaud Foundation, Instituto de Tecnologia Química e Biológica, Faculdade de Ciências of the University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior Tecnico, INETI, Sintra Centro Ciência Viva, Centro de Investi-gação e Estudos de Sociologia, Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Cooking Lab, Associação Viver a Ciencia, Ayumikata, Natura Algarve, Marta de Menezes, Manuela Lopes, André Castro, Several companies sponsored the event, either by providing catering (Delta, Unicer, Biosphere, Frida) or contributing to fundraising (Portugal Telecom, Sapo). The walk for science was outsourced to Sportis.Read more about Researchers’ Night and the IGC Open day at:www.igc.gulbenkian.pt/investigadores2008www.igc.gulbenkian.pt/diaaberto/2008

Jennifer, Moises and Vanessa

“I used to have hobbies, and I do still have the ambition. I just don’t have the time.” Rockman, 33, just started his own lab at New York University to continue his work in understanding the world around us. He refers to a book by Fran-çois Jacob, “What are the mechanisms that translate the possible into the actu-al? I have always found this a very use-ful contrast.”On October 31st he presented his work on the genetics of heritable variation in C. elegans. This visit to the IGC is his third. “The IGC is a good place for young people to develop independently,” he thinks, “and it benefits from having scientists who have been all over the world”. However, Matthew Rockman’s associations here have inspired him mainly in a whole other area: “I started reading Portuguese writers’ work, like Camões, Lobo Antunes, Saramago… all of whom I discovered through my con-

tacts at the IGC.” As a student Rockman wanted to become an art historian. This took an interesting turn when he realised the main artwork on this planet, Natu-re itself, could also be seen in a historic context. He graduated an evolutionist, and set off to Australia to study the evolution of velvet worms. “I wanted to study so-mething obscure,” he laughs, and adds: “They display an intriguing chromoso-

mal variation caused by various types of fusion, and hence became a model for chromosomal evolution.”Over the years his model systems have included bats, humans and sea urchins. For the last few years he has been stu-dying C. elegans – and not just C. ele-gans. “I discovered Caenorhabditis ‘species 8’ in my backyard, by putting a tomato out to rot, and taking out the nematodes. One of those was an entirely new species, which I wanted to name C. jerseycitiensis after the city I lived in.” His work has always been at the epicen-tre of his day, and this devotion has paid off. Within his first decade of research he published over 15 papers, and he has much more data still unpublished. And the end is not in sight: “In science you keep following what you didn’t expect,” so predicting where the end will be is useless. “A biologist’s work is never done.”

Matthew V. Rockman: from Art History to BiologyBy Barbara Vreede

When you look up and see the sign for the “Vasco da Gama” corridor, you can surmise that the IGC’s wings were named after great explorers of the past.

However, depending on which corridor you are entering, odds are that you may instead have wondered “who the hell was Zheng Ho?” or “what’s an Ibn Batuta?”.

Decades before the European Age of Discoveries, China had its own maritime epic. The Ming dynasty sponsored 7 voyages of the “Treasure Fleet”, which sailed the Pacific and Indian Oceans between 1405 and 1433 in search of, well, treasures. Historians say the Treasure Fleet had as many as 300 ships and 30000 sailors- by way of comparison, Columbus’ effort decades later consisted of a trio of precarious vessels (all three would fit inside one “treasure ship”) and a hundred or so crewmen.

The Fleet was improbably commanded by Zheng Ho, a Mongolian muslim whose career began with the invasion of his landlocked region, Yunan, by the Chinese Empire. Thirte-en year old Zheng was kidnapped by the Ming army and un-derwent a common, but very painful, selection procedure for Imperial service. He was castrated- a process which scholars describe as “worse than writing grants”. Once this minor for-mality was completed, Zheng began a meteoric rise that led him to the rank of Admiral. Under his command, the Trea-sure Fleet explored the coast of Asia and Africa, creating many vassal states along the way (and bringing the first gi-raffes to China, which local sages proclaimed to be “qilin”, the unicorn). More controversially, some believe Ho explo-red both North and South America, a claim hard to verify as records of the last two voyages were destroyed by Emperor.

Today in the IGC’s Zheng Ho wing dedicated to develop-mental biology and cell cycle studies, scientists like Rui Mar-tinho and Miguel Godinho try to honor the eunuch tradition of discovery.

Through the Keyhole:

Who was Zheng Ho? By Thiago Carvalho

Matthew V. Rockaman