Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is a 1 mm nematode and model organism used in research, education, and industry. It has many scientific advantages which have been recognized by the awarding of the Nobel prize to C. elegans researchers in Physiology or Medicine in 2002 and 2006 and in Chemistry in 2008. The Nordic C. elegans network is comprised of 22 laboratories working on different aspects of this amazing little worm. The main aim of the network is to advance scientific knowledge through cooperation, exchange, and education.

Goals

The Nordic C. elegans network has been formed in order to achieve the following goals:

• Overcome the lack of geographic proximity of C. elegans laboratories
• Achieve critical mass of contacts in C. elegans research
• Enhance research training opportunities for C. elegans researchers
• Facilitate researcher exchange
• Share in education and scientific resources and services
• Enhance visibility of the Nordic C. elegans research community to increase local participation

Activities

In order to realize these goals, the following activities have been planned for 2007-2010.

Annual Meeting

The first annual meeting of the Nordic network is planned for early 2008 in the Stockholm area. The close quarters of a meeting and an informal atmosphere will strongly facilitate cooperative interactions between the participants. Scientific presentations will be provided by the Ph.D.students and post-doctoral fellows. In the following years, a similar format will be followed, although the venue will change (e.g. Helsinki, Norway, Denmark, Estonia).

Courses and Technical Workshop

Since there is a wide variety of interest among the research groups, focussed courses and technical workshops lasting 1-3 days will be organized by network members. These courses will exploit the expertise of the organizer and be supplemented by other network members. Ph.D. students from the network, as well as other students from the Nordic area will have the opportunity to participate in these courses to learn new techniques, to practice new technologies, and to develop new relationships. Teachers from outside the Nordic region will also be invited to bring additional expertise. The first course has been planned for autumn 2008 in Tartu, Estonia, and another is under planning in Oslo, Norway.

Researcher Exchange

Support for short-term exchange visits between Nordic research laboratories will be implemented. These visits will be a means to disseminate methodological and technological knowledge within the framework of a scientific project shared between 2 or more laboratories. These exchanges will also act as a means for labs to share infrastructure resources such as specialized microscopy, transgenic, and computational systems not currently available at the home institution. Joint publications are expected to be produced from these visits.

Aims

1. Strengthen scientific cooperation between the laboratories.
2. Provide a vehicle for exchange of students/researchers between labs.
3. Convene an annual network meeting and separate workshop.
4. Promote the use of C. elegans as a model organism in the Nordic area.

The principle benefits in the network would be the availability and opportunity to interface with other labs in the Nordic area with each partner providing their own area(s) of expertise and to provide a structure for advancing research and educational opportunites in the C. elegans field.