Julia R Migliore
We live in an amazing world! When we dig into the details of nature, we find things that surprise us, make us curious, and often leave us bewildered. Even our best scientists only understand small pieces of the complexity of the world. I believe that there is a God who not only understands it all, …
Scientists nickname Connexin-43 "Cx43" or sometimes "GJA1" (gap junction A1). You know how the uterus has to contract all at once during labor? Or how whole chambers of the heart need to contract together to pump blood? Cx43 is a critical protein for making that happen! Cx43 is part of the connexin family of proteins. …
Meet butyrylcholinesterase! Better known as BChE, butyrylcholinesterase was recently identified as a possible indicator of SIDS risk (scientists are not sure about this quite yet). SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) can occur in a vulnerable infant during a critical developmental period when they experience an outside stressor.* A lot of research efforts have been invested …
As part of their check-up at birth, babies get a prick on the heel. Among many other things, the blood tests for the function of a protein called phenylalanine hydroxylase. (Scientists sometimes call it "PAH" for convenience.) PAH is the first in a sequence of enzymes that break down excess phenylalanine. It speeds up the …
Pregnancy can be detected by looking for the glycoprotein human chorionic gonadotropin, which functions as a hormone. After an egg has been successfully fertilized, the resulting cell multiplies into a mostly hollow ball of cells called a blastula. Trophoblast cells, the cells on the exterior of the blastula, make and secrete hCG when the blastula …
Meet P4-type ATPase, better known as Flippase! Flippase lives and works in the plasma membrane. The plasma membrane is the border between the outside and the inside of the cell made from two layers of phospholipids. (We call the membrane a "phospholipid bilayer.") Phospholipids have heads that enjoy the water, but their tails hate water. …
Meet Myosin Binding Protein C! Myosin Binding Protein C's childhood nickname was "C protein," but these days it goes by "MyBP-C." MyBP-C is a regulatory protein in muscle. As its name implies, it binds to myosin, which is the protein responsible for producing the force in a muscle contraction (meet myosin here!). It also binds …
In honor of Plastic Free July, allow me to introduce PETase! PETase is an enzyme that eats plastic. Specifically, it dines on polyethylene terephthalate, the kind of plastic that most "disposable" water bottles are made of. from PDB 5XJH PETase was recently discovered (in 2016) in species of bacteria called Ideonella sakaiensis. It's believed that …
Have you ever been sick with strep-throat? Pneumonia? Food poisoning? A UTI? You visit your doctor and she says your illness is a bacterial infection, so she is prescribing you some antibiotics. She instructs you to take your entire round of antibiotics, all the way to the last dose, even if you start feeling better. …
It often goes by the nickname "APP" for short. APP has been extensively studied because of its association with Alzheimer's disease. Despite being studied so intensely, APP's role is complex and there is a lot that researchers just have not figured out yet. (But I will share some of what we do know!) APP lives …
Science Magnifies 