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The
American Fisheries Society
Genetics
Section
Newsletter
Volume
23,
Issue 2
May
2010
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In This Issue:
President’s Message•
Wright Award •
Student Travel Awards
• Lab
Profile: Wirgin •
Coastwide Salmonid
Symposium •
Newsletter
Submission • Calendar
President’s
Message
Dear
Genetics Section Members,
Over the past two years my
understanding and appreciation of the work preformed by dedicated
professionals
associated with the American Fisheries Society and the Genetics Section
in
particular has grown immeasurably.
I am
thankful for the opportunity to serve as this Section’s President. I look forward to working
with members of the
Section and Parent Society in years to come in a greater capacity, and
with
greater commitment than I may have considered prior to my acceptance of
this
position. I have
been truly humbled by
the commitment and level of volunteerism exhibited by members I have
interacted
with. My sincere
thanks to all who have
stepped forward in the past several years to contribute to this
Section’s
activities.
I
would like to take this opportunity in the sunset of my term to thank
several
individuals whose contributions make our Section function effectively. First, I am extremely
grateful to Joel Carlin, our man
with the ‘nose for
news’ for his outstanding service as the Genetics Section Newsletter
Editor. Joel scours
the list servers and
our Section’s membership for news-worthy items and for announcements of
interest to our membership. The
advancements made to the newsletter over the past years have been badly
needed,
much appreciated, and could not have been accomplished without Joel’s
dedication.
Secondly,
I would like to thank Eric Hallerman
for his time and efforts in the area of student membership. Eric took considerable
time from his duties
to assist in efforts with the AFS Student Subsection and our students
to work
toward increased participation by our student members.
I hope you all will read the recent
article
published in Fisheries by two of our graduate student members (Jamie Roberts and Yen
Duong) on their views of professionalism and the benefits of
Section membership to our students.
Student members have also benefited by
our Section’s expansion of travel
grants to meetings other than the annual AFS meeting.
Congratulations to this year’s
recipients Mike Ackerman who
received a travel
grant to present at the Coast-wide meeting and Matt
Smith who received a travel grant to present at the SNP III
Workshop.
Past
President Ed Heist and Past Past
President Jeff Hard have continued
to work in multiple areas associated with Section Activities. Their contributions and
sage advice have been
much appreciated.
Our
Section sponsors two awards that are given annually.
The Phelps Award is given to the best
paper
published by Section members in an AFS Journal.
Ken Currens
have been the
chair of the selection committee for the award for a number of years. Many thanks to Ken and to Chris Habicht, Brian Sloss, Bernie May
and Orlay Johnson who have also
served during the past two years.
The
Wright Award recognizes the top student papers presented at the annual
AFS
meeting. Jeff Olsen has been the head of this
committee for several
years. Meredith Bartron and Joel
Carlin have also recently served on this committee.
Finally
President Elect Templin and
Secretary-Treasurer (and President-Elect) Meredith
Bartron have served in numerous capacities on the Section’s
Ex-Comm and
have contributed greatly to Section Activities.
I
sincerely hope that the service provided by these and other individuals
will
continue so that the Section will grow and flourish in the years to
come.
Sincerely,
Kim
Scribner
AFS Genetics
Section President
Apply
Today for the Genetics Section Graduate Award in Memory of James E.
Wright
The Genetics
Section of the American Fisheries Society is
pleased to announce the James E. Wright
Graduate Award. This
award is
presented annually by the Genetics Section at the AFS Annual Meeting
and is
intended to recognize excellence in graduate-level work in fisheries
genetics
and to assist graduate students with travel to the national meeting. The section anticipates
awarding two checks
for $500 each to attend the 2010 AFS annual meeting in Pittsburgh. All graduate students are
encouraged to
apply.
Selection will be based on the following criteria:
- Potential for
success in research in fisheries genetics (60%)
- Anticipated
contribution to upcoming annual meeting, e.g. paper, poster, or other
contribution (20%)
- Service to
the Society, its Sections, or Chapters (10%)
- Demonstrated
need for travel assistance (10%)
Application
Procedure:
- Applicant
must be a full or affiliate member of the Genetics Section at the time
of application.
- Application
package should include:
- A brief
curriculum vitae including anticipated degree, date of completion, and
career goals
- A statement
of the thesis or dissertation and abstract of progress to date
- The names and
addresses of two references familiar with the applicant’s background
and abilities.
- A statement
of previous service to the Society, its Sections, or Chapters, and need
for travel assistance.
- A statement
addressing anticipated contribution to the upcoming annual meeting.
Deadline for application is: June 18, 2010
All
application materials should be sent via
postal or email to: Jeffrey
B. Olsen, Conservation
Genetics Laboratory, U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service, 1011
East Tudor Road, Anchorage, Alaska 99503.
Phone (907) 786-3598, Email: jeffrey_olsen@fws.gov.
Congratulations!!!
Genetics Section Student Travel Awards
We at the AFS
Genetics Section
extend heartfelt congratulations to recipients of two Genetics Section
Student
Travel Awards.
Matt Smith from
the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of
Washington won
a student travel award to the SNP Workshop III in Blaine, WA on March
22-24.
Michael
Ackerman, from
the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of
Washington won
a student travel award to the Coast-Wide Meeting to be held this summer.
Congratulations
Matt and Mike!!!
Sincerely,
Kim
Scribner
President,
AFS Genetics Section
Lab
Profile: Fish Ecotoxicology and Population Lab
Dr.
Ike Wirgin, Dept. of Environmental Medicine, NYU School of Medicine
Our lab is
housed at the
Sterling Forest Campus (45 miles NW of New York City) of the Department
of
Environmental Medicine of the NYU School of Medicine.
As a result of being part of a medical
school, our research focus probably differs from most other fish
genetics
labs. But, we feel
that our use of an
environmentally relevant in vivo fish model provides benefits not
enjoyed in
vitro or inbred rodents typically investigated in this setting. Our
research
falls into three general categories;
1.
Molecular Ecotoxicology: The Hudson
River, in our
backyard, contains the largest federal Superfund site in the U.S.
because of
its contamination with PCBs. In
addition, locales within the estuary are highly polluted with dioxins,
PAHs,
and a variety of metals including chromium (Cr).
Our lab has used a species common to the
Hudson River, the Atlantic tomcod, as a model to study the toxic
effects from
the molecular to the population levels of these chemical pollutants.
Tomcod was
chosen for our studies because of the extraordinarily high prevalence
of liver
tumors and the truncated age structure of the Hudson River population
observed
during the early 1980s (44-95% prevalence of hepatocellular carcinomas).
Our
studies have involved
cloning genes associated with metabolism of these toxicants or
initiation of
carcinogenesis to evaluate the role of PCBs and other pollutants in the
etiology of disease. This
has enabled us
to compare expression levels among tomcod from rivers with varying
levels of
pollution or those chemically treated in the lab under controlled
conditions. Recently,
we have used
quantitative RT-PCR at candidate genes and developed tomcod-specific
cDNA
microarrays to characterize global patterns of gene expression. Interestingly, we have
found that tomcod from
the Hudson River are now highly resistant to PCB induced early life
stage
toxicities and expression of cytochrome P450 genes.
We have discovered that resistance is
due to
a single mutation in a receptor gene that binds PCBs and that mediates
most of
these phenotypic responses. We
feel that
resistance likely resulted from strong selective pressure by
contaminants for
the resistant phenotype.
We are also
applying many of the same early life stage toxicity and gene expression
assays
to both species of sturgeons in the Hudson to evaluate their
sensitivities to
PCBs and compare them to those reported in other fishes.
Recent
mammalian studies have implicated the role of chemically-induced
epigenetic
alterations in a variety of diseases including cancer.
Epigenetic change elicits phenotypic
change
through changes in downstream gene expression.
Our lab is currently investigating the
role of Cr treatment singly or
combination with PCBs and PAHs on histone modifications and correlating
these
changes with gene expression and toxicities in early life stages of
tomcod. We
are also now mapping the
histone modifications that we have observed to individual candidate
genes using
chromatin immunoprecipation (ChIP) assays but in the future we hope to
use the ChIP-Seq
approach to globally map these histone alterations across the entire
tomcod
genome. This will
require the use of the
next generation sequencing approach.
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Dr. Nirmal Roy, a
Research Scientist, performing ChIP
analysis of H3K14Ac (a modification of lysine 14 of histone 3) at the
cytochrome P4501A promoter in Atlantic tomcod treated with graded doses
of
chromium.
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2-
Population Genetics of Marine and Anadromous Fishes: We
have a long history of investigating the stock structure of a variety
of fishes
of importance to management in the northeastern U.S. using DNA-based
approaches. Our
current and recently
funded projects are on American shad, winter flounder, sea lamprey,
striped
bass, Atlantic sturgeon, and shortnose sturgeon.
Our approaches include mtDNA control
region
sequencing, microsatellites and SNPs analyses.
The Atlantic sturgeon project is
particularly interesting because of
their potential ESA listing and demonstrated vulnerability to bycatch
in a
variety of coastal fisheries and the unknown stock origin of “bycaught”
contingents. Our
results will enable us
to quantify the impact of bycatch on individual river stocks of
Atlantic
sturgeon.
A subadult Atlantic sturgeon of unknown
stock origin jumping in the Atlantic Ocean off Fire Island Inlet, New
York.
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At
right:a sea
lamprey about to be collected from its
spawning grounds in the Basherkill
River,
a tributary of the Delaware River in New York.
Below: Lorraine
Maceda, a Research Technician, characterizing allelic frequencies at a
battery
of microsatellite loci to determine the stock origin of American shad
in
coastal bycatch harvest.
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3. Genetic
Susceptibility to Disease: Being in a medical school
and having a long
history in the use of DNA-based approaches in characterizing genetic
variation,
we collaborate with epidemiologists in identifying genes associated
with
inter-individual variation in susceptibilities to breast, pancreatic,
ovarian,
and endometrial cancers. These
candidate
gene studies have used haplotype
tags and TaqMan real
time genotyping to compare allelic frequencies
in prospective studies of cases and controls in DNAs
from 14,000 women enrolled in the NYU Women’s Health Study.
Graduate and
Postdoctoral Research Opportunities: The
Department of Environmental Medicine provides graduate training at the
M.S. and
Ph.D. levels through the NYU School of Arts and Sciences. All Ph.D. and most M.S.
students receive
stipends and full tuition remission.
Almost all of our coursework is offered
at
the Washington Square Campus of NYU in lower Manhattan.
The Department also has several slots
annually
for Postdoctoral trainees on our recently renewed NIEHS Training Grant. Those interested
in doing research in our
lab must have projects that focus on the area of Ecotoxicology.
Would you
like to know more?
If you are interested in learning more
about the work done by Dr. Wirgin
and his colleagues, please contact him at (845) 731-3548
or via email at Isaac.Wirgin@nyumc.org.
Symposium
Announcement
Coastwide
Salmonid Genetics Meeting
June
2-4,
2010 Grove Hotel, Boise, Idaho
You
are invited to attend the 2010 Coastwide Salmonid Genetics Meeting!
Please join us for a stimulating meeting with all of your top
colleagues.
Important
Information:
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Located at Grove Hotel in rockin’ downtown Boise!
(reservation info to come)
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Proceedings planned to be published in special
issue of Transactions
of the American Fisheries Society (more info to come)
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Student travel scholarship to be provided by AFS
Genetics Section (more info to come)
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Mug at registration entitles holder to free beer at
Banquet!
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Finish with a rafting trip on the Payette River!
Tentative
Agenda:
Tuesday, June 1:
Evening - Ice-breaker social
Wednesday,
June 2: Morning - Plenary session: Genetic adaptation of
salmonids
Afternoon - Plenary and general session
Evening - Poster Session
Thursday,
June 3: Morning - General session
Afternoon - Fluidigm Exhibit and
Breakout Meetings
Evening - Social & Banquet
Friday,
June 4: Morning -
General Session
Afternoon
– Rafting trip
For
more information, contact: Shawn Narum (nars@critfc.org)
or Chris Kozfkay (christine.kozfkay@idfg.idaho.gov)
Publicize,
Politicize, Proselytize:
Contribute to the AFS Genetics Section Newsletter
If you would
like to advertise a
symposium or job opening, or have your laboratory profiled, consider
submitting
to the AFS-GS newsletter. Simply
contribute
by emailing the editor at jcarlin@gustavus.edu on or before
July 25. Remember that this is the
newsletter just
before the annual meeting, so you can use this to invite people to
symposia,
talks, or even for hotelsharing. We look forward to hearing
from you!
Sincerely,
Joel
Carlin,
Newsletter Editor
Calendar
of Upcoming Events
June
Jun
2-4 —
Coastwide
Salmon Genetics
meeting.
Grove
Hotel, Boise ID. See
this issue for details.
Jun 6-11 — Annual
meeting of ASLO & NABS 2010,
the joint Meeting
of American Society of Limnology and Oceanography and the North
American Benthological
Society.
Santa Fe NM. See www.aslo.org/meetings/santafe2010/.
Jun 15 –
Abstract deadline for the annual symposium of the American
Genetic Association on Conservation
Genomics. To be held
at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii from 26-28 July, 2010. See http://www.theaga.org/2010/.
Jun
18 – Application deadline for the AFS
Genetics Section Wright Award.
See this issue for details.
Jun 25-27 —
SEB Animal Section Symposium on Intra-specific
diversity in aquatic animals. At
the Sete
Station Mediterraneenne
de l’Environnement
Littoral, Sete, France. See http://www.sebiology.org/meetings/Sete2010/Sete.html.
Jun 25-29 — Evolution 2010, the annual
meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution the
Society of Systematic Biologists (SSB), and the American Society of
Naturalists
(ASN), at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland Oregon. See www.evolutionsociety.org/SSE2010/.
Jun 29-30 – iEvoBio 2010, the 2010 Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and
Biodiversity conference.
Held
contiguously with Evolution 2010 in Portland
Oregon. See
http://ievobio.org/ocs/index.php/ievobio/2010.
July
Jul 1 –
Early registration deadline for the annual symposium of the American
Genetic
Association on Conservation Genomics. To be held at the
University of Hawaii at
Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii from 26-28 July, 2010. See http://www.theaga.org/2010/.
Jul 3-7 — 24th
International
Congress on Conservation Biology.
To be held in Edmonton, Alberta Canada.
See www.conbio.org/Activities/Meetings/2010.
Jul 4-8 — SMBE 2010,
the annual meeting of the Society of Molecular Biology.
Lyons
Conference Center, Lyons France.
See http://smbe2010.univ-lyon1.fr.
Jul 7-12 — Ichs and Herps
’10,
the Joint Meeting of the American Elasmobranch
Society, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the
Herpetologists League, and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and
Reptiles. Westin
Providence Hotel, Providence RI.
See www.dce.k-state.edu/conf/jointmeeting/.
Jul
25 — Submission Deadline for
the AFS Genetics Section Newsletter.
Contact the AFS GS editor at jcarlin@gustavus.edu.
Jul 26-28 –
Annual symposium of the American Genetic Association on Conservation
Genomics. University of Hawaii at
Hilo, Hilo, Hawaii
from 26-28 July, 2010. Registration
deadline is Jul 1, abstract deadline is Jun 15.
See http://www.theaga.org/2010/ for
details.
August
– October
Aug 17
— Symposium deadline for SICB 2011,
the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative
Biology. To be held
3-7 Jan 2011 at the Salt Lake City
Marriott in Salt Lake City, Utah.
See http://www.sicb.org/meetings/2011/.
Sep
12-16 — 140th Annual
Meeting of the
American Fisheries Society. Westin
Hotel
and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh PA. See http://www.fisheries.org/afs10/.
Sep 28-30 — Wild Trout X. Holiday
Inn, West
Yellowstone MT. See
http://www.wildtroutsymposium.com.
The
American Fisheries Society Genetics Section
May 2010
Newsletter
Volume
23, Issue 2

In
This Issue:
President’s Message•
Wright Award •
Student Travel Awards
• Lab
Profile: Wirgin •
Coastwide Salmonid
Symposium •
Newsletter
Submission • Calendar
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