Karen's recent paper is now available at Developmental Dynamics. Here is the link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25997406
This work is important because it identifies the kinase (called sphk2) responsible for generating a lipid mediator (sphingosine 1-phosphate, S1P) that provides a critical signal for bringing together the early progenitors that form a primitive heart during embryogenesis. Without this signal, this process fails and the embryo generates two "hearts" on either side (cardia bifida) which is, obviously, a bad thing. To do this work, Karen generated a targeted mutation in the sphk2 gene. Gene editing is an amazing technology that is truly revolutionizing science, and soon enough, medicine. More on that to come...
Meanwhile, the point of this post is not only to highlight Karen's paper, but to mention that shortly after her paper was accepted, an entirely independent study was published in JBC by Kawahara's group, that essentially showed the exact same results, using more or less the exact same strategy. The link to their paper is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25907554
Is that weird? How could two completely independent groups halfway around the world from each other, carry out the same study? No, it's not weird. Each group's work is the natural extension of a larger body of work focused around this signaling pathway and its role in cardiogenesis, starting back in 2000 when Didier Stainier's laboratory identified the S1PR2 (the receptor) as the mutated gene in the zebrafish miles-apart mutant (back in the day, you found mutants first, and then had to clone the gene to figure out the cause; today we can mutate any gene we want). Here is that link, which is really a tour-de-force and beautiful paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10910360
So there is a very important lesson to be learned: If nobody else is working on your project, then you may need to rethink if it's really an important project. The corollary, and more relevant lesson, since you can never prove that nobody else is working on your project, is this: if you are quite sure that your project is important, than you can be completely sure that others are also working on the problem. Does this mean you will get "scooped" and unable to publish your work (and thereby perish!). Well, it can happen (at least the scoop part, and "publish or perish" is certainly true). But usually it does not happen, and it certainly does not mean you are likely to perish. In fact, there are almost always related papers published around similar times.
Two additional examples from our lab: In 2013, Novikov and Evans discovered that the Tmem88 gene regulates WNT signaling and cardiogenesis in zebrafish (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23903195). Back-to-back in the same issue of Development, Murray's group discovered the exact same thing using hESCs (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23924634). Earlier that same year, Gabe and Emily showed in Developmental Biology that two small heat shock proteins regulate early cardiogenesis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23850773) and lo and behold, the exact same thing was shortly thereafter reported in the same journal by Marvin's group (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24140541).
So this happens all the time. Although we may worry about being scooped, in fact it is quite reassuring to find other groups are replicating your own discoveries. So then, should you panic, worrying about who is potentially going to scoop your work? Of course you should!! But do so in a productive way, which means heading to the bench and pushing ahead. Keeping close track of the literature and meeting reports. Making sure you are doing the right experiments to complete a publishable study. Don't give up! And ultimately, don't worry. Even if scooped, you will likely have some additional information or alternative perspective to contribute, so that the work can still be published.
This work is important because it identifies the kinase (called sphk2) responsible for generating a lipid mediator (sphingosine 1-phosphate, S1P) that provides a critical signal for bringing together the early progenitors that form a primitive heart during embryogenesis. Without this signal, this process fails and the embryo generates two "hearts" on either side (cardia bifida) which is, obviously, a bad thing. To do this work, Karen generated a targeted mutation in the sphk2 gene. Gene editing is an amazing technology that is truly revolutionizing science, and soon enough, medicine. More on that to come...
Meanwhile, the point of this post is not only to highlight Karen's paper, but to mention that shortly after her paper was accepted, an entirely independent study was published in JBC by Kawahara's group, that essentially showed the exact same results, using more or less the exact same strategy. The link to their paper is here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25907554
Is that weird? How could two completely independent groups halfway around the world from each other, carry out the same study? No, it's not weird. Each group's work is the natural extension of a larger body of work focused around this signaling pathway and its role in cardiogenesis, starting back in 2000 when Didier Stainier's laboratory identified the S1PR2 (the receptor) as the mutated gene in the zebrafish miles-apart mutant (back in the day, you found mutants first, and then had to clone the gene to figure out the cause; today we can mutate any gene we want). Here is that link, which is really a tour-de-force and beautiful paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10910360
So there is a very important lesson to be learned: If nobody else is working on your project, then you may need to rethink if it's really an important project. The corollary, and more relevant lesson, since you can never prove that nobody else is working on your project, is this: if you are quite sure that your project is important, than you can be completely sure that others are also working on the problem. Does this mean you will get "scooped" and unable to publish your work (and thereby perish!). Well, it can happen (at least the scoop part, and "publish or perish" is certainly true). But usually it does not happen, and it certainly does not mean you are likely to perish. In fact, there are almost always related papers published around similar times.
Two additional examples from our lab: In 2013, Novikov and Evans discovered that the Tmem88 gene regulates WNT signaling and cardiogenesis in zebrafish (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23903195). Back-to-back in the same issue of Development, Murray's group discovered the exact same thing using hESCs (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23924634). Earlier that same year, Gabe and Emily showed in Developmental Biology that two small heat shock proteins regulate early cardiogenesis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23850773) and lo and behold, the exact same thing was shortly thereafter reported in the same journal by Marvin's group (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24140541).
So this happens all the time. Although we may worry about being scooped, in fact it is quite reassuring to find other groups are replicating your own discoveries. So then, should you panic, worrying about who is potentially going to scoop your work? Of course you should!! But do so in a productive way, which means heading to the bench and pushing ahead. Keeping close track of the literature and meeting reports. Making sure you are doing the right experiments to complete a publishable study. Don't give up! And ultimately, don't worry. Even if scooped, you will likely have some additional information or alternative perspective to contribute, so that the work can still be published.
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