Two HFSP postdoc fellowships and one HFSP Career Development Award

Two Hubrecht employees received a Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) postdoc fellowship and one employee received a HFSP Career Development Award. 

Phong Nguyen from the Jeroen Bakkers group received his fellowship for “examining genome wide gene expression and regulation during cardiac regeneration in zebrafish”. Nguyen will look at how cardiac cells in the heart of the zebrafish are able to generate new cardiac tissue after injury. Unlike humans, zebra fish have the ability to restore their heart after an injury. Read more about the heart research at the Bakkers group here.

Nicolas Battich from the Van Oudenaarden group received his fellowship for his research titled “a single-cell multi-omics approach to study mouse pre-implantation development”. Battich wants to map all gene activity within one (mouse) cell, within a given timeframe, to see the influence of the micro environment on the gene expression. Read more about the single-cell research at the Van Oudenaarden lab here.

Matilde Galli receives a HFSP Career Development Award for her research: “understanding endomitosis: a common road to polyploidy”. Galli has her own line of research within the institute, where she studies polyploidy. Polyploid cells, which contain a multitude of chromosome pairs, are important in many animals for organ and body growth. Galli will study how cells are programmed to become polyploid in the nematode C. Elegans, by identifying the genes that drive cells to change their cell division program.

Additionally, Anoek Zomer, former employee from the Van Rheenen group also received a fellowship to “investigate the microenvironmental heterogeneity of genetically diverse glioblastomas”. Read more about the Van Rheenen research here.

What is HFSP?

On the occasion of HFSP’s 25th anniversary celebration in 2014, a short movie on the spirit and scientific scope of the Program’s mission was made. What is meant by funding frontier research? Why is intercontinental collaboration in research so important to HFSP?  Past and present members of the HFSP governing committees representing different scientific disciplines and countries comment on the characteristics that are unique to this funding program in the following film: