The explosive, moving, crushing, slightly depressing, exciting reality of the cell (and how it's a bit like a red Ferrari).

My first wheels.

My first experience of driving a car was totally reckless. At top speed I mounted the kerb, grinning at passers-by as I slammed into a wall. I then leapt out of the seat, vaulted the wall, and ran off in search of criminals.

Granted, I was pretending to be Magnum P.I at the time and had a top speed of how fast a 3 year-old can scoot along whilst sitting down. But the thought was there: this is easy, let’s open this baby up on a slope, see what she can do.

When I finally got behind the wheel (of a Ford Escort, not a Ferrari), some 15 years later, the reality came as quite a shock - there were gears, and brakes and stuff to check and top-up. So many things to remember when I just wanted to screech around the place - and this was all before I’d even looked under the bonnet/hood. But, like everyone else I learnt, because... well, that’s the reality if you want to drive.

The depressing reality of the car (but beautiful to some)

When I first looked down a microscope at some cells, I was similarly astonished. These cells weren't all the same shape or size, they weren't staying still, in fact they were twanging around the place. And inside? Inside it looked like complete chaos. 

The cell in front of me was a microscopic machine: millions of proteins crashing together and breaking apart; some were building the cell from within, or acting as scaffolding, or fighting infection, or making copies of DNA before ripping the enitre cell neatly in two every 24 hours.

The GCSE cell, simplified but still correct.
(Credit BBC Bytesize 2011)

Our cells are full of moving parts. And if we want to fix them when they go wrong, such as when a cell becomes cancerous, we first need to understand how they work - how all these parts are wired together. It's quite a daunting and slightly depressing challenge - how on earth do we go about it?

One way is to work on smaller pieces of the cell first. Just as a mechanic will work on the exhaust system, the electrical system and the cooling system of an engine, cell biologists might specialise in the p53 DNA damage system, the NF-kappaB sgnalling system or the cell cycle.

In the end, would-be cell biolgists face a choice - to look at the horrific, awe-inspiring complexity of the cell's wiring and either run screaming or accept that there's lots to see, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty!

The horrific, but beautifully complex, wiring of the cell.
Up to you... do you want to know more?
Download this poster as a PDF from Cell Signalling.

In future posts I'll tell you how scientists have looked under the cell's bonnet/hood, what they've found out about its systems and their wiring, and what the future might hold...

Too many live wires

Hello to anyone and everyone who has found themselves here! The idea behind this blog is to offer a fresh perspective on the complex life inside living cells. 

Tools of the trade: Pipette.
Used by biologists to mix precise
amounts of liquid such as DNA
in solution. (For hours on end.
Whilst tied to a lab bench.)

Why listen to me?

I am a systems biologist. I look inside cancer cells to examine the wiring between different genes and proteins which might be at fault. Then, because this wiring is often tangled, I get up from the microscope or lab bench and plonk myself behind a computer.

It is here that we use whatever we’ve been able to see to build a virtual model of parts of the cell. These models allow us to make sense of all of the information we see and, more importantly, to predict what might be happening to what we can’t see.

I’ll go into what Systems Biology actually is in a later post.

My posts will also try to answer questions like:

What does the latest “scientists find the gene for <insert something horrible here>” headline actually mean?

What’s in the research papers from around the world that most newspapers don’t report on?

and also…

How do I get into biology if I have a maths or computer science background?

and the tricky one... What are scientists actually like?

Wiring inside cancer cells: HeLa cervical cancer cells, enigneered in a dish to glow different colours
 as they prepare to go through cell division. We can learn a lot about the cell's inner wiring from
measuring how quickly these "traffic lights" change.
Watch the movie here!

I hope this blog will be unique, useful and <gulp> even entertaining! Any technical jargon will be explained, messages will hopefully be clear, and I won’t go on for pages and pages with some lofty opinion or other. I will hopefully be posting every two weeks (at least) and, unlike most blogs, there won’t be any recipes.

Apart from this one.

Tomato, caper and mint pasta sauce

(serves 4)

The lab. Science is a lot like cooking really.

Ingredients:

1 decent handful of spaghetti

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

1 large clove of garlic, crushed

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp capers, drained

1/2 tbsp tomato puree

1 handful chopped mint

1 handful chopped basil

pinch of chili flakes

salt

pepper

Recipe:

Warm the olive oil in a pan over a medium heat, then add the garlic.

After 5 minutes or when garlic starts to brown, remove garlic and add tomatoes. Stir.

Simmer for 5 minutes then add puree and chili. Stir again.

Leave simmering for 10 minutes adding salt and pepper as you like.

Whilst this is bubbling away cook the pasta in salted water.

With one mintue to go add the capers, mint and basil. Stir well.

Drain pasta, serve and spoon over the sauce.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to Professor Mike White, Dr Dave Spiller and Rick Stein.