Weird Science, or Keep on Trucking

Today in weird science, Effect of estrogen on mitochondrial function and intracellular stress markers in rat liver and kidney following trauma-hemorrhagic shock and prolonged hypotension.

After major blood loss of 62% of the circulating blood volume, the animals cannot maintain their blood pressure and expire if fluid resuscitation is not provided (8). When a small volume of E2, and not vehicle, was administered after 62% blood loss, the animals not only demonstrated an acute survival during prolonged hypotension (3 hr), but also prolonged survival after fluid resuscitation.

Yes, we can drain 2/3rds of a rat's blood, shoot it full of estrogen, keep it alive for three hours, and then bring it back to life. As they say, "It's alive! Mwahahahaha!"

There are 1.2 billion people alive today who were born before the molecular basis of life was discovered

This is for those who claim that some of the questions we ask today will never be answered.

(Population data from here. Using the central dogma of molecular biology, articulated in 1958, as a somewhat arbitrary cutoff point.)

Reaction-Diffusion : Gray-Scott Model

A "related video" link from the CUDA version of cortex lead me to this web-page

http://www.mrob.com/pub/comp/xmorphia/index.html



Best stalking points this work back to one Robert Munafo based in Cambridge.

Microrobotically fabricated biological scaffolds for tissue engineering

My first paper credit! This was a bio-engineering project. We explored a new fabrication method for building submicron-scale fibrous constructs out of the biodegradable polymer polylactic acid (PLA). 

Designing fibrous, biodegradable, patterned substrates is relevant for tissue engineering: they provide a mechanical substrate to guide the structural development of the tissue. We cultured the mouse myoblast (muscle building) C2C12 cell line (which has been immortalized since 1977) on the constructs. The cells adhered to the fibers and replicated happily.

You can download the conference paper here.

We took some beautiful confocal and electron microscopy images:

The C2C12 cells were modified so that the structural protein α-tubulin is attached to a green fluorescent protein. This protein is a component of the cytoskeletal microtubules. These structural elements are especially prominent during cytokinesis, just before the cells divide (below).

Below is a false-color confocal image of the cells proliferating on the scaffold. The PLA fibers (blue) were imaged in brightfield. The α-tubulin-GFP fluorescence is in green, with fine structures highlighted in yellow.

Here are a few more fluorescence and electron microscopy images (click on thumbnail to view full size):

If you would like to reproduce or refer to these images, you can cite the paper as:

Nain, A.S., Chung, F., Rule, M., Jadlowiec, J.A., Campbell, P.G., Amon, C. and Sitti, M., 2007, April. Microrobotically fabricated biological scaffolds for tissue engineering. In Proceedings 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (pp. 1918-1923). IEEE.