Program and Abstract Book - 19th International C. elegans Meeting

PLENARY, PARALLEL AND WORKSHOP LISTINGSSaturday, June 29 1:30 PM–3:00 PMEngineered nucleases for genome editing in nematodesRoom:Grand Horizon BallroomOrganizer: Hillel Schwartz, , HHMI and Division of Biology, CalTechCo-chairs:John Calarco, FAS Center for Systems Biology, Harvard UniversityAri Friedland, Dept. Genetics, Harvard Medical SchoolTe-Wen Lo, HHMI and Dept. Molecular and Cell Biology, UC BerkeleyYonatan Tzur, Dept. Genetics, Harvard Medical SchoolJordan Ward, Dept. Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSFSpeakers:Te-Wen Lo, HHMI and Dept. Molecular and Cell Biology, UC Berkeley,Advances in Targeted Genome Editing Across Species: HeritableDesigner "Knock-In" and "Knock-Out" ModificationsJordan Ward, Dept. Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, UCSF, UsingCRISPRs to engineer the C. elegans genomeVivian Chiu, HHMI and Division of Biology, CalTech, Transgene-freegenome editing in nematodes using CRISPR-CasAri Friedland, Dept. Genetics, Harvard Medical School, HeritableGenome Editing in C. elegans via a CRISPR-Cas SystemRecent technological developments have made it possible to constructnucleases with targeted specificity: ZFNs (Zinc Finger Nucleases),TALENs (Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases), and CRISPR-Cas (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). Usingany of these methods, a researcher can induce double-strand breaks atthe sequence of their choice. These breaks are repaired imperfectly bynon-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) to leave small deletions or arerepaired by homologous combination with an intact copy of the locus,which should permit the user to knock in precise changes at any site inthe genome. Researchers will describe their experiences using thesetechniques in C.elegans and other nematodes and will discuss thepotential for further developments.Saturday, June 29 1:30 PM–3:00 PMWormBase tutorial: Phenotypes, Interactions,Pathways, and Human DiseaseRoom: Bradley International BallroomOrganizer: Chris Grove, California Institute of TechnologyOne core mission of WormBase is to capture information from theresearch literature about how all of the various biological entities of thenematode function together in the context of the organism. Theseentities include anatomy objects such as cells and tissues, sequencebasedobjects such as genes and proteins, as well as small molecules ofendogenous or exogenous origin. This workshop will focus onexplaining how users of WormBase can best access information aboutinteractions between these various entities, as well as what phenotypesresult from perturbation of their function. We will showcase some ofour new visualization tools including our embedded Cytoscapeinteraction network viewer. We will also discuss how users maydetermine the relevance of various genes to human diseases and howC. elegans can be used as a model system for studying thesepathologies. In addition we will introduce WormBase "Process Pages"and WikiPathways. Process Pages integrate genetic data withanatomical, developmental, and temporal information to focus on thelarger biological picture of the nematode rather than on the discretebiological entity, such as the gene. To better visualize these intersectingdetails, we are using WikiPathways to diagram genetic and physicalrelationships. WikiPathways is a powerful community-driven pathwaysdatabase with online and desktop editing tools. In this workshop wewill introduce WikiPathways and demonstrate how to use the tools tobuild your own pathways and how to submit them to WormBase.Speakers:Abigail Cabunoc, WormBase, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research(OICR), An introduction to WormBase 2.0Chris Grove, WormBase, California Institute of Technology, Accessingphenotypes, interactions, anatomy, and human disease dataKaren Yook, WormBase, California Institute of Technology, Introductionto WormBase process pages, WikiPathwaysAlexander Pico, WikiPathways, The Gladstone Institutes, University ofCalifornia San Francisco (UCSF), WikiPathways22