Bioethics Blogs

Cool Videos: A Biological Fireworks Display



A recipient of an NIH Director’s 2016 New Innovator Award, Petry has previously shown that at the start of cell division a small protein called Ran, which gets activated around the chromosomes, stimulates microtubule branching [1]. The activation of Ran, like clicking on a master switch, frees up hundreds of other proteins to self-assemble and form into the complex molecular machinery required for cell division. Petry found that one of these “freed-up” proteins, called TPX2, appears to team with certain protein complexes and potentially other still-unknown proteins, to stimulate the microtubule branching shown in this video.
