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- Hello! My name is Janet Iwasa. I am a molecular animator and work with other researchers to create visualizations of molecules that are so small, they're essentially invisible! As a scientist, I love observing the natural world. However, as a cell biologist I'm much more interested in understanding the natural world at a much, much smaller scale.
- The molecules I observe everyday are smaller than the wavelength of light! This means we can never observe them directly, even with the best light microscopes out there.
- One kind of experiment can tell us about the protein shape, while another can tell us about what other proteins it might interact with, and another can tell us about where it can be found in a cell. All of these bits of information can be used to come up with a hypothesis, a story essentially, on how a molecule might work.
- Scientists, like my collaborators, create these visualizations by carrying out a series of experiments that each can tell us a small piece of the puzzle.
- Actin filaments are constantly being built and taken apart. Actin allows for the cells to change shape, to move around, to adhere to surfaces, and to gobble bacteria.
- In our muscle cells, Actin structures form these regular filaments that look like fabric. When our muscles contract, these filaments are pulled together and they go back to our original position when our muscles relax.
- Below is an immune cell. These kinds of cells need to crawl around in our bodies in order to find invaders, such as pathogenic bacteria. This movement is powered by a protein called Actin, part of the cytoskeleton.
- Donut-shaped proteins seem to act to rip apart structures by pulling individual proteins through a central hole. When these proteins don't function properly, the proteins that are supposed to be taken apart can stick together and aggregate. This can cause diseases, such as Alzheimer's.
- Other parts of the cytoskeleton, in this case, microtubules are responsible for long-range transportation. They can be thought of as cellular highways that are used to move things from one side of the cell to the other. Microtulules grow and shrink, appearing when needed and disappear when their job is done.
- The nucleus houses our genome in the form of DNA. In all of our cells, our DNA is cared for and maintained by a diverse set of proteins. The DNA is wound around proteins called histones, enabling cells to pack large amount of DNA into the nucleus. These machines are called chromatin remodelers. They scoot the DNA around these histones and allow new pieces of DNA to become exposed.
- CRISPR takes advantage of a protein called Cas9, which can be engineered to recognize and cut a very specific sequence of DNA. Two Cas9 proteins can be used to excise a problematic strand of DNA. For example, part of a gene that may give rise to a disease. Cellular machinery is then used to glue the two ends of the DNA back together.
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