Established and Emerging Model organisms for Marine Science (Schmid Training Course)

Historically, marine organisms have fascinated biologists. During this training, students will meet scientists working with a broad range of marine organisms (acoels, brown algae, annelids, marine bacteria, cephalochordates, cartilaginous fish, cnidarians, echinoderms, sponges, placozoa, tunicates) and will discover with them why these models are central for research in biology.

Participation to the course requires good knowledge in:

•  tree of life (particularly metazoan phylogeny)
• molecular biology and developmental genetics
• developmental biology
• animal biology
• english (for scientists)

In order to avoid an overloaded programme and to dedicate more time to experiments and scientific exchanges, marine models presented each year undergo a rotation.

This course is open to Master students interested in marine organisms, development, molecular studies and evolution. It is integrated to the Master BMC (Molecular and Cellular Biology) at Sorbonne Université (SU) and more particularly to the thematic BioMa (Marine Biology: from molecules to organisms).

Aim of the course

To show students how marine organisms can be used to explore several fields of biological research: tissue and organs regeneration, genetic networks and genomic data, behavior, neuroscience, cell biology, cellular morphogenesis. Functional approaches and tools for molecular and cellular analyses are also presented for each organism.

Teaching method

This course benefits from a hybrid learning i.e. combining online distant resource (see below) with in-person pratical lab work in the marine station of Roscoff.

Teaching staff

Supervisor of the course and of the tutorial classes: Agnès Boutet

Experts for lectures and practical lab work:

• Alexandre Alié (CNRS, OOV),
• Xavier Bailly (CNRS - Roscoff),
• Stéphanie Bertrand (SU - Banyuls),
• Agnès Boutet (SU - Roscoff),
• Jean-Philippe Chambon (University of Montpellier),
• Bénédicte Charrier (CNRS - Roscoff),
• Patrick Cormier (SU - Roscoff),
• Salvatore D’Aniello (Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn - Naples),
• Alexander Ereskovsky (IMBE, Marseille),
• Eve Gazave (Institut Jacques Monod, Paris),
• Julia Morales (CNRS - Roscoff),
• Nicolas Rabet (SU - MNHN),
• Bernd Schierwater (Hannover University),
• Simon Sprecher (University of Fribourg),
• Sébastien Darras (CNRS, OOB),
• Stefano Tiozzo (CNRS, OOV)

Description

Students will learn, for each model, life cycle, anatomy, embryogenesis and reproduction strategy together with descriptive and functional approaches that have been developed successfully. An up-date concerning available genomic data will also be made. As for experiments, students will perform immunohistochemistry, embryonic development table, egg micro-injection, phototaxy test, dissection and regeneration experiment. All organisms will be available for observation. A foreshore excursion is also organized to appreciate the biodiversity present on the shoreline of this region.

The way of teaching for this training is hybrid meaning that it comprises a preparation time ahead of the course (to learn fundamental knowledge autonomously) and an in-person course with the different scientists for the practical and conceptual parts of the teaching. An online distance learning platform (see below) has been designed specifically for students participating to this training. This platform hosts dedicated web pages for each marine organism with several learning materials (video lectures, interviews with researchers, virtual labs, 2D and 3D animations, interactive diagrams and scientific literature). This autonomous learning allows to free up time during the in-person course for practical lab work and discussion with the scientists.

Digital Marine Plateform