Tubular

These images show cross sections of the different compartments of the developing gut in a chick embryo: esophagus (top), small intestine (middle), and large intestine (bottom), at days 6, 8, 10, and 14 (left to right). As the chick develops, the shape of the gut changes from a simple tube to a more complex form with specific surface folding patterns. The way the surface is … Continue reading Tubular

Cell-eidoscope

    Bovine Pulmonary Artery Epithelial (BPAE) cells have been featured several times in the gallery and on our Instagram; incase you missed them, check out Kaleidoskeleton, Plumotion, and Cytoskeleton Four Ways. In this stunning collage, BPAE cells and macrophages are artistically stitched in a kaleidoscopic array, their cytoskeletons and nuclei stained several different colors. The cytoskeleton is responsible for essential cell functions including cell … Continue reading Cell-eidoscope

Cytoskeleton Four Ways

This Bovine Pulmonary Artery Endothelial (BPAE) cell is stained to show two components of the cytoskeleton – microtubules in green, and actin filaments in red (in the top right panel). The cell is a crowded place, so one of the functions of the cytoskeleton is to act as a highway along which cellular components can be moved to the proper part of the cell. This … Continue reading Cytoskeleton Four Ways

Epiboly

After the initial phase of rapid cell divisions, vertebrate embryos must go through a variety of cell movements to form the primary axis of the body and arrange cells to give rise to different tissues.  Here an embryo of the Discus fish (Symphysodon discus) is seen undergoing these essential cell movements in a process called epiboly, during which cells migrate from the top of the … Continue reading Epiboly

Plumotion

The plume-like shape of these Bovine Pulmonary Artery Epithelial (BPAE) cells is characteristic of cell motility. Although cells that make up your tissues and organs are typically stationary throughout adult life, there are many reasons a cell may need to move around. For example, when you get a cut on your skin, skin cells move together during the healing process, closing the wound. Also, white … Continue reading Plumotion

A Cure in Sight

  Gene therapy is an approach to treating disease that uses genetic information—DNA—as a drug. Monogenic diseases, where a single genetic mutation results in a nonfunctional protein and disease-causing agent, are excellent candidates for treatment by gene therapy. A virus can be engineered to carry the corrected form of the mutant gene instead of its own viral genes. These engineered viruses, called vectors, still retain … Continue reading A Cure in Sight

Experimenting with robots!

This is a short video of a robot in the Kishony and Springer labs at Harvard Medical School. We often conduct experiments that require watching what happens to microbes in a variety of conditions over time. This custom configured and programmed machine allows us to measure up to 44 plates for days at a time. It can collect over 500,000 data points a day, enabling … Continue reading Experimenting with robots!