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Asked by anon-292585 to Rebecca on 21 Apr 2021.
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Rebecca Reed answered on 21 Apr 2021:
Hi Liam!,
I think for me the most interesting thing was seeing how their conditions affect them. When growing cells it’s important that they’re kept at just the right temperature, pH, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, nutrient levels, so many things that are needed to keep them growing nicely. Changes in all of these things can change how the cells grow, and even more so when we treat cells with different drugs in experiments, seeing how their shape or size might change because of something we’ve altered. We can also stain the cells with fluorescent antibodies so that they glow different colours when you shine a laser at them, which help us to see different proteins the cells are making, so that’s really interesting to see change 🙂
Hope that answers your question!
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Comments
Steve commented on :
Cells are amazing! When you’re first taught about them, you think of them as just little bags of “stuff” – but they are incredibly complicated and well-organised.
One project I worked on we looked at cells called neutrophils – they are white cells in the blood that search out and destroy invaders, like bacteria. We discovered that they send out long “fishing rods” to catch the bacteria, then pull them back in to eat them! We watched this happening on the microscope and it was awesome! You can also make neutrophils follow a pipette around the dish by letting it leak a chemical messenger – they move so fast – one of the fastest moving cells in the human body.
Ross commented on :
I only study parasite cells so they’re all a bit weird! Some parasites (like one called Trichomonas (trick – o – moan – as)) don’t even have mitochondria (the power-house of the cell), they have something called a hydrogenosome.
Also they look like aliens: https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/950107/view/trichomonas-vaginalis-illustration