metabolites
Snapshots of Life: Behold the Beauty of the Eye
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: Bryan William Jones and Robert E. Marc, University of Utah
The eye is a complex marvel of nature. In fact, there are some 70 to 80 kinds of cells in the mammalian retina. This image beautifully illuminates the eye’s complexity, on a cellular level—showing how these cells are arranged and wired together to facilitate sight.
“Reading” the image from left to right, we first find the muscle cells, in peach, that move the eye in its socket. The green layer, next, is the sclera—the white part of the eye. The spongy-looking layers that follow provide blood to the retina. The thin layer of yellow is the retinal pigment epithelium. The photoreceptors, in shades of pink, detect photons and transmit the information to the next layer down: the bipolar and horizontal cells (purple). From the bipolar cells, information flows to the amacrine and ganglion cells (blue, green, and turquoise) and then out of the retina via the optic nerve (the white plume that seems to billow out across the upper-right side of the eye), which transmits data to the brain for processing.
Cool Videos: Metabolomics
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Today’s feature in my Cool Video series is a scientific film noir from the University of Florida in Gainesville. Channeling Humphrey Bogart’s hard-boiled approach to detective work, the protagonist of this video is tracking down metabolites—molecules involved in biological mysteries with more twists and turns than “The Maltese Falcon.”
If you’d like a few more details before or after watching the video, here’s how the scientists themselves describe their project: “Inside our cells, chemical heroes, victims, and villains leave behind clues about our health. Meet Dr. Art Edison, one of many metabolomics PIs who are on the case. Their quest? To tail and fingerprint small molecules, called metabolites, which result from the chemical processes that fuel and sustain life. Metabolites can shed light on the state of health, nutrition, or disease in a living thing—whether human, animal, or plant. Funded by National Institutes of Health grant U24DK097209, the University of Florida Southeast Center for Integrated Metabolomics is sleuthing through these cellular secrets.”
Metabolomics: Taking Aim at Diabetic Kidney Failure
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
iStock
Caption: Dialysis is often used to treat kidney failure related to diabetes.
My own research laboratory has worked on the genetics of diabetes for two decades. One of my colleagues from those early days, Andrzej Krolewski, a physician-scientist at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, wondered why about one-third of people with type 2 diabetes eventually develop kidney damage that progresses to end-stage renal disease (ESRD), but others don’t. A stealthy condition that can take years for symptoms to appear, ESRD occurs when the kidneys fail, allowing toxic wastes to build up. The only treatments available are dialysis or kidney transplants.
