Audrey Desgrange, Shaping Life 2, Online Conference, 7-9 April 2021

Shaping Life 2

→ Boarding Pass

Postdoc with Sigolène Meilhac, Institut Imagine – Institut Pasteur, Paris

Thanks to the SFBD boarding pass, I had the opportunity to attend the online conference Shaping Life 2. This annual congress of the French Society of Developmental biology is always a great opportunity for the French community (but not only) to gather around our field. Although online, the conference remained very much alive, mixing Zoom talks, Slack questions, along with poster sessions and informal discussion on Gather town. Around 150 participants were connected to this virtual conference center, spanning 3 days, with 8 scientific sessions showcasing the full diversity of our field: Stem cells and organoids / Mechanics and self-organization / Environmental impact on development / Tools and technology / Neuro-development / Developmental pathologies / Evo-devo and emerging models.

The opening session, with Alfonso Martinez-Arias as keynote speaker beautifully captured the tone of this meeting: cutting edge experiments and provocative hypotheses to build a better understanding of embryogenesis. I was particularly infatuated with Andrea Pauli’s talk on zebrafish fertilization and gastrulation with the modeling of a morphogen gradient during cell migration.

I also had the opportunity to present the results of my main postdoc work during the Developmental pathologies session and share many interesting discussions with friends and colleagues.

I am very grateful to the SFBD for this great opportunity to attend this meeting with this amazing community of scientists. This is really crucial for us, in particular during this pandemic period.

→ Audrey presented a short talk entitled: “Transient nodal signalling in left precursors coordinates opposed asymmetries shaping the heart loop”