We used to have lab meetings in a room that had a printout on the wall of one of those grids of how post-docs, technicians, PIs, PhD students are viewed by each other. That got me thinking, on a smaller scale, of the same opinions played out between neuronal and glial biologists. Everyone thinks of […]
Synapses are the connections between nerve cells and the number and density of them is linked to how networks form in brain. Microglia are cells that patrol the brain to remove debris and foreign objects such as pathogens. They also modify neuronal networks by nibbling away synaptic contacts, hence the term ‘synaptic pruning’. This isn’t […]
Any views expressed here on atomic physics are purely amateur. My opinions on cell culture however come from years of experience, good and bad. The thrill of successfully growing and then filming a dish of neurons was always special. The frustration of an infection in a cell line or a tissue culture facility never really […]
This is a cartoon I drew for a teaching session on metabolic control by a group of proteins called the mTOR complex. mTOR stands for ‘mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin’. Rapamycin is bit of a wonder drug and the story of its discovery is one of my favourite scientific tales of serendipity. Many antibiotics originally come […]
