Standing on the shoulders of …molecules
Before Rebecca Liu can study kinesins, these amazing little walking molecules that drag things around the cell, she has to learn a ton of stuff about them. Her mentor, Sharyn A. Endow in cell biology, has been assigning readings to get Rebecca up to speed and then they discuss what she’s learned. The Endow lab studies the machinery of the cell that moves things around, such as pulling the chromosomes back before the cell splits.
The motor molecule Kinesin makes an appearance just before the half-way point of this fantastic movie done by Harvard with support from our friends at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (See the film) Kinesin is the weird barbell thing walking along a beam towards you, towing a huge load. Isn’t it cool?
It takes some imagination to see the strange, rubbery world of the cell at this scale (and the music’s usually not included) but that’s what Rebecca and the Endow lab are trying to do!
June 13th, 2007 at 11:32 am
hey Karl…I’ve seen that video…it’s awesome. And yes, I think it’s very cool how they “walk.”