Graduate Student Seminar with Simon Wang On Yeast Cells
Simon Wang of Washington University in St. Louis will be presenting the seminar "Decorate Yeast Cells like Christmas Trees"
Cells are the basic units of most living organisms. Eukaryotic cells are those equipped with membrane bound organelles, which allow the life maintaining biochemical reactions to happen at a higher efficiency in a confined space. In order to observe different organelles in their working environment within yeast cells, we managed to attach fluorescent proteins of several different colors onto several organelles, and measured their numbers and sizes with hyperspectral confocal microscopy. Statistics of the organelles revealed some interesting cellular reactions to their environment, especially how the cells balance growth of individual size and population when the nutrition is limited.