We have arrived to the end of the summer. When we first arrived nine weeks ago I remember George saying that there was an open challenge for anyone who could directly observe the interaction of the contractile proteins actin and myosin working within the cleavage furrow of a cell dividing. The idea that something as fundamental as cell division was not fully understood really go under my skin. Life as we know it including growth and development of organisms, tissue repair, and reproduction depend on cell division. When it goes wrong you can end up with too many or too few chromosomes and its failure has been linked to cancer. George also mentioned that although our understanding of cell division has undoubtedly improved in the last few decades that there were examples from nature which are hard to explain. This could mean one of two things. Cell division is a universally conserved feature of all animal cells and our understanding of cell division is not as complete as it could be or cells have evolved different ways to use the same core components. From the beginning of this summer I have been driven by these questions George asked. Today I had the opportunity to present my findings to the wider scientific community. It was really fun to discuss my research to other scientists.
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AuthorMy name is Philip Aspinall, and I am a student at Sierra College in Grass Valley, California. The first time I peered into a microscope and found an entire, complex, beautiful world below the visible, I was transfixed. I am thankful for George von Dassow and Svetlana Maslakova for allowing me to work in their lab, and to Geroge for his generosity with his time and for being my mentor this summer. Archives
August 2019
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