Junior Internship
Very little information exists on the anatomy of mitochondria, as only a handful have been modeled. This is detrimental, especially to neurobiology, because mitochondria perform such essential functions. They are mainly responsible for creating energy in the form of ATP, but they also are the source of body heat and facilitate health cell death. All of these functions are rooted in the structure of the mitochondria. The level of energy production and the amount of heat that radiates through the rest of the body may be increased by a greater internal surface area. My project was part of a larger study of those properties. I traced a single mitochondria that had been segmented into 299 images by computerized tomography, the same process involved in medical CT scanning. Creating such a detailed model required tracing each individual image in a program called Reconstruct. My project manager, Tom, was then able to put it into Blender, which allowed him to smooth out the model and create the movies shown below. Going forward, the model may be used to simulate the function of the mitochondria to conduct tests. We are continuing to work on finding the measurements and may even create 3D-printed models.
3 Comments
Taylor
6/8/2018 01:32:48 pm
Hi Rachel - It seems like you gained a lot of valuable experience from your internship. I wonder if you see yourself possibly doing lab work in the near future.
Reply
Elly Jarvis
6/8/2018 11:54:52 pm
Your project in creating a model of the mitochondria seems like a great way to further research the anatomy of the mitochondria, and useful for recording measurements. I was surprised to read that little is known about the anatomy of the mitochondria. How is your model going to be useful for learning and researching its anatomy further into the future?
Reply
Eric Marshall
6/10/2018 10:21:32 pm
Being able to create something that can be used to research something we know so little about is always exciting to see, because who knows the extents that we could go with just a small model like this?
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
The ProgramJunior Internship is a month-long opportunity to gain experience in a real work environment. I am happy to be spending this time at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. ArchivesCategories |