Physics and the Cell: Mysteries of the Cytoskeleton

Margaret Gardel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in Physics, is a 2007 recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer award, along with four others from The University of Chicago. Fundamentally interdisciplinary, Gardel's research straddles both the physical and biological sciences by exploring disease on a molecular level. Gardel explains how the physical structure of cells may yield clues to advanced treatments for cancer and other diseases.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• actin
• Award
• biochemical
• biomedical
• biophysics
• cancer
• cardiac
• cell
• cytoskeleton
• Margaret
• Gardel

[MrUnladenswallow]

*sees argument over religion* *leaves*

[zenithar6666]

its not about whos god can be interpreted to do what, its about where the evidence leads, and although things cergtainly change over time, design is the ONLY plausible expalantion for the systms we see in nature unelss you invoke utter unfounded miracles every, miracles would become the norm

[ananiasacts]

@Monkopalooza, Consciously... none. But unconsciously I must be manipulating many billions of them every day. Do you really think we're that far away from building machines that focus on evolving better proteins? And viral delivery systems capable of editing our genome more or less like a word processor? Did you realized the first quantum computer was delivered a couple of weeks ago? It's not inconceivable that we find ways to engineer cells unlike any that exist presently to address cancer.

[Monkopalooza]

@ananiasacts why cant we engineer cures for cancer, aides, hunger, poverty etc etc. its a beautiful request but how many white blood cells have ya tried to manipulate?

[glitchyyy]

Either way, nature looks like it'd fare fineeee without us.

=)

[ananiasacts]

@Hottides, I like to think of god as nature's way of artificially enhancing the applied intellect of all humanity by giving the "special" people something far more important to do, like praying for our souls. Of course there are always costs, but nature's heart is certainly in the right place. We just need to refine her technology to get the kinks out of our present implementations.

[ananiasacts]

Why can't we engineer a super small artificial leucocyte that doesn't have any of the reproductive machinery, but knows how to wander around our bodies simply cleaning up any problems it encounters until it runs out of resources and dies?

[Nexus2Eden]

@dennis1381 They are a polymer of stupidity with an elastic memory. lol

[howardhughes21]

Excellent observation!

[dennis1381]

It´s shocking that every second movie with a scientific topic seems to animate people to write about the creationism-crap... It´s ridicolous...