Written by: Zoe Yeoh
Editors: Stephanie Palmer and Jennifer Baker
The University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine hosted its 7th annual RNA symposium on March 23rd, 2023. The theme of this year’s symposium was “From Molecules to Medicines,” and it featured an impressive lineup of RNA experts who shared fascinating research on a wide range of RNA topics.
Continue reading “Center for RNA Biomedicine holds 7th annual symposium”Live blogger: Varsha Shankar
Editors: Sadie Gugel and Jennifer Baker
This piece was written live during the 7th annual RNA Symposium, “From Molecules to Medicines,” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriters’ coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna.
You may recall learning in high school biology that ribosomes are the smallest organelle. Despite their miniscule size, these organelles are one of the most critical – that’s why they, unlike some organelles, are present in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. The site of protein synthesis in the cell, ribosomes are responsible for building proteins that dictate our bodily metabolic activity, and ultimately, who we are.
Continue reading “Joseph Wedekind: Redefining Riboswitches”Live blogger: Sadie Gugel
Editors: Varsha Shankar and Jennifer Baker
This piece was written live during the 7th annual RNA Symposium, “From Molecules to Medicines,” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriters’ coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna.
The nucleus, the endoplasmic reticulum, and the mitochondria are organelles likely familiar to many of us from biology class. These structures are separated from the rest of the cell by membranes and are used by eukaryotic cells to compartmentalize and organize molecules that support specific cell functions. While these organelles are certainly important, Dr. Amy Gladfelter and her group are interested in a different kind of cellular organization: biomolecular condensates.
Continue reading “Amy Gladfelter: Encoding temperature sensitivity in biomolecular condensates”Live blogger: Paul Dylag
Editor: Jennifer Baker
This piece was written live during the 7th annual RNA Symposium, “From Molecules to Medicines,” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriters’ coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna.
Biomolecular condensates are found throughout plant and animal cells in various organelles that lack membranes, such as the nucleolus and RNA granules. Normally, membraneless organelles would be an issue, as mixing their components with cytoplasm or extracellular fluid may result in mutations. However, there must be some chemical agents that prevent this, as otherwise life would not have evolved to such complex levels. Researchers are still investigating what prevents these issues from occurring, but one category of molecules called pickering agents have been determined to play a key role in this process.
Continue reading “Geraldine Seydoux: Regulation of biomolecular condensates by interfacial protein clusters”Live Blogger: Jennifer Baker
Editor: Eilidh McClain
This piece was written live during the 7th annual RNA Symposium, “From Molecules to Medicines,” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriters’ coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna.
The “central dogma” of biology – that DNA is transcribed into RNA is translated into proteins – is a scientific tenet that haunts many American 10th graders during high school biology class. You might recall seeing diagrams like this one of an mRNA molecule sandwiched between the two halves of a ribosome as a new strand of amino acids unfurls from the exit site.
However, it’s likely that your teacher didn’t spend much time on the how and why of this process – why does the ribosome bind to the mRNA? How does it find the start codon, the location on the mRNA that marks the spot where the ribosome starts translating?
Continue reading “Jody Puglisi: The Choreography of Translation Initiation”Live blogger: Eilidh McClain
Editors: Paul Dylag and Jennifer Baker
This piece was written live during the 7th annual RNA Symposium: From Molecules to Medicines, hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine. Follow MiSciWriters’ coverage of this event on Twitter with the hashtag #umichrna.
In response to multiple external factors, chromatin in chromosomes is able to dynamically shift in order to facilitate gene regulation. Gene expression is altered in part by the use of RNA-protein interactions within the chromatin. However, study of these interactions features many experimental requirements that are not optimized for studying chromatin dynamics as a whole and its role in gene regulation. Dr. Steve Henikoff and coworkers at the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center have tackled this RNA-protein interaction problem by developing new and powerful tools for studying those interactions. Now that these tools have been developed, they can provide interesting insights to the role of chromatin dynamics in regulation of gene expression and silencing with relative ease compared with previous methodology.
Continue reading “Steve Henikoff: Genome-Wide Mapping of Protein-DNA Interaction Dynamics”Written by: Jennifer Baker
Edited by: Christina Del Greco, Jessica Li, and Andrew Alvarez
Illustrated by: Katie Bonefas
Take a deep breath in … (it’s okay, I’ll wait) … aaaannnnndddd release. Feel better? While breathing deeply is relaxing and has psychological benefits, it also has a fundamental physiological function.
Unless you are reading this atop Mount Everest where gas concentrations deviate from those at sea level (congrats on your successful ascent!), about 21% of the air you just inhaled is oxygen, a vital resource your cells need to survive. This oxygen is used by cells all over your body for chemical processes such as generating energy for cellular functions like building proteins, fixing cell membranes, and repairing DNA.
Continue reading “Elemental damage: When oxygen makes you short of breath”Written by: Lirong Shi and Manaswini Sarangi
Editor: Sarah Kearns and Alyse Krausz
Introduction
As a scientist working around scientists, we may not realize how much scientific waste we and our colleagues produce every day, just like everyone else who may not pay attention to how much household waste we produce in our kitchen. We are so used to the waste in the lab, and compared to the large garbage bin outside, we might think the small plastic bucket in the lab should be negligible. But that is not true. Accounting for only 0.1% of the population, scientists create approximately 5.5 million tons of plastic waste annually in life science alone, which accounts for approximately 2% of the plastic waste produced worldwide [1]. The large amount of plastic waste wandering around the oceans can disrupt carbon balance, poison fish, and end up on humans’ tables. Through experiments, scientists are attempting to improve everyone’s life while also literally contributing to the detriment of the world.
Continue reading “With experiments, comes waste: Scientific waste and where it ends up”Written by: Lacey Bishop-Schouster
Edited by: Courtney Myers
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
When we think about intelligence in the animal kingdom, our minds often go straight to ourselves. Then maybe to apes cracking nuts with tools, dolphins playing games, or elephants who “never forget.”
However, there’s another group of animals that is often overlooked and should be included with these examples: the cephalopods. Cephalopods—octopuses, squids, cuttlefish, and nautiluses—are a class of mollusks distinguished by their soft bodies, tentacles, and ability to move by jet propulsion. Although they are invertebrates, they show some of the most complex behaviors on the planet. In fact, they have the largest brains of any invertebrates, and their path to intelligence looks nothing like ours.
Continue reading “Intelligence without a backbone”Written by: Hasnaa H. Abo Shosha
Edited by: Jessica Li
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
I was amazed when I first learned that something as small as a particle of soot could shift the Earth’s climate. These particles are so tiny that you could line thousands of them across a single strand of hair. And yet, they have the power to change how much of the Sun’s energy warms our planet. I like to often think of them as invisible sun catchers floating in the sky.
Continue reading “How Tiny Particles Shape Climate”Written by: Carly Blair
Edited by: Charukesi Sivakumar
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
Almost every cell in the human body contains around two meters (or 6.5 feet) of DNA, encoding the complete instructions for all of your body’s functions. Hair, stomach, brain, skin; each part so vastly different, but all stemming from the same base instructions. So what stops a skin cell from producing stomach acid, or the brain from producing hair? The answer lies in epigenetics.
Continue reading “Epigenetics: How Cells Keep their Sense of Self”Written by: Theresa Murphy
Edited by: Kaitrin Freeland
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
When most people think of “college”, they think of their own personal experience. “College” conjures memories of big games, late nights, dodging 8 a.m. classes, making friends, and maybe even a class or two. The majority of people only ever scrape the surface of what universities have to offer, whether as undergraduate/graduate students, parents of students, or members of the public whose tax dollars fund public higher education. Beyond the parts of the university designed specifically to engage with the public (such as sporting, alumni, and public engagement events), most laypeople are only ever associated with college through academics. Their exposure is college courses, professors standing in front of a chalkboard lecturing, and students with piles of reading. Colleges have a PR problem. The university is a large ecosystem, and for many well-known universities, undergraduate teaching is only a small portion of that ecosystem. However, the dissonance between public expectations and the actual, multifaceted priorities of the university exposes an important flaw in the system: most college teachers are not adequately taught how to teach.
Continue reading “Educating the Educators: The Importance of Educational Training for Future Faculty Members”Written by: Chidinma Chukwukaeme
Edited by: Courtney Myers
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
What if we could make clones of Brad Pitt or Taylor Swift that can act or sing as well as they do? These clones could stand in for them in film scenes or concerts and still perform well. This analogy is similar to what we are researching in the Lee Lab at Michigan State University. Our research focuses on developing and testing clones of chemicals secreted by brown fat (a type of body fat that burns calories to generate heat when activated). These chemicals secreted by brown fat increase the breakdown of fat and glucose in the body. This may provide a less expensive way to help your body burn fat and lose excess weight without exercise or strict dieting.
Continue reading “Brown Fat: Unlocking the Body’s Natural Weight Loss Tool”Written by: Alexandra (Alexa) Putka
Edited by: Colter Giem
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
In 2019, rare diseases in the United States cost almost $1 trillion in direct and indirect costs to patients and caregivers, according to the National Economic Burden of Rare Disease Study. This astronomical number emphasizes that research on rare diseases not only benefits patients and their families, but it also stands to make a considerable societal and economic impact. I am a graduate student researching a rare genetic disease called Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3, or SCA3, which affects one in every 50,000 to 100,000 people. Ataxia means loss of coordination, and symptoms appear similar to drunkenness: stumbling, falling, incoordination, and slurred speech. Symptoms are relentlessly progressive and result in death, usually 10 to15 years after symptom onset. Unfortunately, SCA3 has no known cures or treatments to halt or reverse disease progression. This emphasizes the need for ongoing research to better understand the disease and provide answers for this fatal disease.
Continue reading “Myelin Matters: Understanding Oligodendrocyte Dysfunction in a Rare Neurodegenerative Disease”Written by: Elena Renshaw
Edited by: Courtney Myers
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
Natural selection is happening all around us, shaping the living world and our future; we just need to observe. When Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859, he proposed a revolutionary idea: organisms within the natural world actually change over time, through a process he called adaptation by natural selection. What made his work so groundbreaking was not any specific discovery, but how he applied what he saw to explain how species adapt and diversify. Darwin demonstrated that by carefully observing the natural world, we can trace how small differences in individual beings accumulate into significant transformations over generations.
Continue reading “Evolution in Plain Sight: The Simple Observations Explaining Nature”Written by: Juan Mato
Edited by: Brenna Saladin
This piece was written in collaboration with the 2025 ComSciCon-MI Write-A-Thon.
Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is the most common inherited form of ataxia– a disordered loss of motor coordination. This rare, progressive disorder stems from a genetic error in the DNA sequence encoding the ATXN3 protein. Instead of functioning normally, this mutant protein becomes toxic, gradually damaging nerve cells.
Continue reading “Sensory Neurons: A New Target for Treating Peripheral Neuropathy in SCA3”Live Blogger: Camila Gonzalez Curbelo
Editor: Paola Medina-Cabrera, Ryan Schildcrout
This piece was written live during the 10th annual RNA Symposium, “RNA Frontiers: From Mechanisms to Medicine” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine.
“Doesn’t everyone want to increase their memory?” asks Dr. Shelley Berger.
Understanding the mechanisms that drive memory loss and aging is precisely the motivation for Berger’s ongoing and exciting research. Dr. Shelley Berger is a scientist in the epigenetics field – the type of science that studies how genes can be regulated without altering the DNA sequence. Authoring high-impact publications in Nature, Science, and Cell, Dr. Berger is undoubtedly a world-renowned expert who has advanced our understanding of many basic biological pathways and has worked to translate this knowledge into applications in medicine and beyond.
Continue reading “Dr. Shelley Berger: Epigenetic pathways as targets in human disease”Live blogger: Ryan Schildcrout
Editor: Brenna Saladin
This piece was written live during the 10th annual RNA Symposium, “RNA Frontiers: From Mechanisms to Medicine” hosted by the University of Michigan’s Center for RNA Biomedicine.
Dr. Nils Walter opens his keynote speech by acknowledging the 10th annual RNA symposium. As a co-founder of the Center for RNA Biomedicine here at the University of Michigan, his excitement for the innovations proposed here is palpable. We feel similarly here at Michigan Science Writers for our 10th year celebration. Walter goes on to say that RNA biomedicine is unique–it offers the fastest path from fundamental discovery to medicine. He emphasizes that this symposium is all about collaboration in working towards swift translation from discovery to medicine.
Continue reading “Dr. Nils Walter: Life in Flux: Dynamic RNA:Protein Complex Assembly Shapes Biomolecular Function”
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