Cecilia Moens

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Cecilia Moens is a Canadian developmental biologist. Moens is part of the faculty at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, where she researches the vertebrate brain using zebrafish as a model organism.

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Early life

Moens was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. From a young age, Moens worked in the laboratory of her father, Peter Moens, a biology professor at York University; she would prepare agar plates and solutions and later performed electron microscopy. [1] [2] She decided to study developmental biology after she saw a time-lapse film of a chick embryo's development, set to the Egmont Overture, during her high school biology class. [1]

Education and career

Moens studied at York University, where she initially worked in her father's laboratory and later studied environmental carcinogens in the laboratory of Barry Glickman. After she completed her Bachelor of Science in 1987, she spent a year at Harvard University in the U.S. before beginning a PhD in molecular and medical genetics at the University of Toronto. Her research, supervised by Janet Rossant, concerned the development of mouses; she earned her PhD in 1993. [1] [2]

Moens became a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Charles Kimmel  [ Wikidata ] at the University of Oregon, [3] where her work involved searching for genes that controlled the development of hindbrain neurons. [4] In 1998, she joined the faculty at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, within their Basic Sciences Division. [5] She runs a laboratory that studies the development of the vertebrate brain, using the zebrafish as a model organism. [6] She is also an affiliate faculty member in the University of Washington Department of Biology. [5] [7]

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zebrafish</span> Species of fish

The zebrafish is a freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family (Cyprinidae) of the order Cypriniformes. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio. It is also found in private ponds.

In the vertebrate embryo, a rhombomere is a transiently divided segment of the developing neural tube, within the hindbrain region in the area that will eventually become the rhombencephalon. The rhombomeres appear as a series of slightly constricted swellings in the neural tube, caudal to the cephalic flexure. In human embryonic development, the rhombomeres are present by day 29.

Hox genes, a subset of homeobox genes, are a group of related genes that specify regions of the body plan of an embryo along the head-tail axis of animals. Hox proteins encode and specify the characteristics of 'position', ensuring that the correct structures form in the correct places of the body. For example, Hox genes in insects specify which appendages form on a segment, and Hox genes in vertebrates specify the types and shape of vertebrae that will form. In segmented animals, Hox proteins thus confer segmental or positional identity, but do not form the actual segments themselves.

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Retinoic acid (used simplified here for all-trans-retinoic acid) is a metabolite of vitamin A1 (all-trans-retinol) that mediates the functions of vitamin A1 required for growth and development. All-trans-retinoic acid is required in chordate animals, which includes all higher animals from fish to humans. During early embryonic development, all-trans-retinoic acid generated in a specific region of the embryo helps determine position along the embryonic anterior/posterior axis by serving as an intercellular signaling molecule that guides development of the posterior portion of the embryo. It acts through Hox genes, which ultimately control anterior/posterior patterning in early developmental stages.

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Hiller, Susanne (15 April 2000). "Zebrafish brain work nets scientists U.S. award". National Post . p. 5. Retrieved 20 June 2022 via newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 "Cecilia Moens". International Zebrafish Society. Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  3. "Neurotree - Cecilia B. Moens Family Tree". Neurotree . Retrieved March 7, 2020.
  4. "ZFIN Publication: Moens et al., 1996". Zebrafish Information Network. Retrieved March 7, 2020.
  5. 1 2 "Cecilia B. Moens". University of Washington . Retrieved January 29, 2021.
  6. "Moens Lab". Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center . Retrieved March 7, 2020.
  7. 1 2 "Five Seattle Scientists Selected as Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators" (Press release). Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. May 11, 2000. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  8. "Awards". Human Frontier Science Program . Retrieved March 7, 2020.
  9. "Cecilia B. Moens". Howard Hughes Medical Institute . Retrieved March 7, 2020.