Guest Lecture - Maggie Werner-Washburne
Amber Leigh Ortiz
Maggie gave a talk on Monday about mitochondria. From this talk we were able to visualize
a way to seek a problem out as well as see the mitochondria different from the models we
were taught. Maggie took apart the different areas of biology and categorized the topics
of research. We discussed the areas of Cell biology: microscopes and centrifuges, Biochemistry:
WWII, gel electrophoresis, TLC. Genetics: genes, phenotype, Molecular Biology: restriction enzymes,
Genomics: what do they all do? Then we moved into the mitochondria, literally. We used a
visualizing activity to take ourselves inside the mitochondria and the cell. This was to
help us discover how the mitochondria ma obtain disease and what s contained within. We
learned the only 37 proteins are made there but, this leads to many more diseases. A few
of these diseases are believed to be: Leighs, Alzheimers, DAD, and Muliple sclerosis.
3 Question I Could Ask
- Of the 8000 how can you be sure there are not any repeats or new additions or letters?
- Can a maker be located inside the mitochondria to give time released staining?
- Are there markers for specific mitochondrial diseases? (changes)
3 Ideas To Take His Research:
- I would like to study targets for changes in mitochondrial diseases.
- By locating a target I would move forward with a way to track changes over time and find a therapy to stop these changes.
- Another interesting study would be to look at signaling pathways of specific changes that lead to proteins.
