Posts Tagged ‘ gfp ’

In space no one can see you gleam – unless you use GFP

May 5, 2012
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In space no one can see you gleam – unless you use GFP

Will humans one day live on other planets than on Earth? I don’t know the answer to that. But I know that if humans attempt to settle on extraterrestrial land, we will want to take plants with us to provide us with food and make our air breathable (1). Before we can successfully embark on space-farming adventures, we need to understand how plants react and adapt to the extreme conditions in space and what genes or metabolic pathways are switched on in this process. Reporter genes help us to study responses to external conditions and stresses. Some of these...

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GFP (A Professor Karmadillo song)

March 9, 2012
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GFP (A Professor Karmadillo song)

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A Green Light for Biology — Making the Invisible Visible

March 6, 2012
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A Green Light for Biology — Making the Invisible Visible

This discovery by Nobel prize winner Dr. Osama Shimomura known as Green Fluorescent has revolutionized molecular biology. Movement of living molecules generally can be seen but the advent of GFP made the invisible visible. The protein, found in jellyfish helps researchers track substances of all kinds, in real time, and show how they mark cells, maintain them and function in concert with other cells.

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Glowing “Kryptonite Sushi” – would you eat it?

March 5, 2012
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Glowing “Kryptonite Sushi” – would you eat it?

Yesterday I came across this video that demonstrates how to make Glowing Sushi, using genetically modified zebrafish to produce a fluorescent “kryptonite roll”. When I first watched the video, my main question was: Why would you want to use fluorescent GFP fish in sushi?! You would have to shine a UV light on your sushi roll while you eat it in order to get the glow effect. Surely there are better ways to enjoy your food than lighting a UV torch into each others mouths to see glowing chewed food. I also felt a bit annoyed. Things like this...

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Faces of Plant Cell Biology: Dr Petra Boevink

February 7, 2012
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Faces of Plant Cell Biology: Dr Petra Boevink

If someone asked me about the three most important papers which my research is based on, I might have to think for a minute or so about two of them. But my choice for the third one (or first one, if you wish) would be very clear: “Boevink et al. 1998!”   Petra Boevink, Karl Oparka, Simon Santa Cruz, Barry Martin, Alan Betteridge, Chris Hawes (1998). “Stacks on tracks: the plant Golgi apparatus travels on an actin/ER network”. Plant Journal 15(3): 441-447.               In this study the researchers linked green fluorescent protein (GFP)...

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The Science of “Sherlock”

January 23, 2012
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The Science of “Sherlock”

  Over the last weeks the BBC has aired season 2 of its fantastic mini series “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. It is fantastic for a number of reasons, but mainly: The story, which transports Sherlock Holmes into London in the 21st century and manages to incorporate social media (for example, John Watson has a blog here), The actors – Sherlock combines the logic of Dr House and the bluntness of Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory”, and Watson’s final speech in the last episode made me tear up. The presence of science in every episode....

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A new range of fluorescent proteins extracted from reindeer tissue

December 21, 2011
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A new range of fluorescent proteins extracted from reindeer tissue

DNA 2.0 has just reported on a recent science paper about a new range of fluorescent proteins. The PDF can be downloaded here. Without any doubt this has to be the most groundbreaking publication of 2011 and I urge everyone to read it and discuss it in their lab’s last journal club of this year! Nine improved monomeric fluorescent proteins from Rangifer tarandus. Santa Claes, Felix Navidad, Nisse Ness E. , Jeremy Elf Tootoo, Dasher Sridhar, Tinsel Tian and Laura Menorah Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci, NorthPole (2011) 12:25-31 Abstract Fluorescent proteins are genetically encoded, easily imaged reporters that have...

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“If You Move I Will Follow – The Organelle Love Song”

April 27, 2011
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“If You Move I Will Follow – The Organelle Love Song”

Have you already seen our new music video about laser tweezers? Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/lasertweezers This video is the result of a collaboration between the Plant Cell Biology Group at Oxford Brookes University and the Oxfordshire musician Cyrus Mower. It shows optical trapping of Golgi bodies in living Arabidopsis leaf cells. Please feel free to download the movie file on our website to show in lectures, presentations, lessons etc. Links: Plant Cell Biology at Oxford Brookes University: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/plant_endomembrane Plant Cell Biology at Wageningen University: http://www.pcb.wur.nl/UK/ In plant cells, the Golgi apparatus consists of many small stacks (Golgi bodies), which move...

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“Sweet Home Apparatus – The ultimate Golgi music video”

April 27, 2011
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“Sweet Home Apparatus – The ultimate Golgi music video”

“I love the Golgi apparatus”…if you love the Golgi apparatus too, you should listen to this song – you won’t get it out of your head afterwards, promise! This video is a collaboration between the Plant Endomembrane Research Group at Oxford Brookes University (UK) and the band “Professor Science”. We are interested in the function and organisation of the plant secretory pathway and use a lot of confocal laser scanning/electron microscopy to take a closer look at our plant cells. When we discovered David Mansfield’s song “Sweet Home Apparatus” online, we thought that the combination between his song about...

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