Cell biology research featured on cover of scientific journal

March 19, 2015

St. Olaf College Professor of Biology Eric Cole (left), Sasha Dmytrenko 16 (center) and Adrian Ripeckyj 17 look at images of the ciliated protist Tetrahymena thermophila. Coles research on the organism was featured on the cover of a scientific journal, and Dmytrenko and Ripeckyj will present their findings at an international conference later this month.

St. Olaf College Professor of Biology Eric Cole, a group of student researchers, and a microscopic organism are making big news this spring.

Coles cell biology research was recently published as the cover article of a scientific journal, and later this month two of his students will present findings related to that article at an international meeting in Boston.

Journal cover storyColes article, Membrane Dynamics at the Nuclear Exchange Junction during Early Mating in the Ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila, was featured on the February cover of Eukaryotic Cell, a scientific journal from the American Society for Microbiology.

Its publication marks the end of a six-year scientific quest that involved eight undergraduate students, two college campuses, and one single-celled study organism the ciliated protist Tetrahymena thermophila.

Tetrahymena thermophila (T. thermophila) is a single-celled organism that acts as a bacterial grazer in freshwater lakes and ponds. It is considered a model organism for molecular and cellular biology due to its rapid growth and possession of key eukaryotic processes.

The research processIn the fall of 2008, Cole spent a semester of released time at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In the universitys electron microscope suite, Cole learned how to perform three-dimensional electron tomography, a process that allows scientists to determine a cells three-dimensional architecture.

In 2012 Cole returned to U.C. Boulder, this time to lead eight St. Olaf students in an electron microscopy course.

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Cell biology research featured on cover of scientific journal