Most people are somewhat familiar with nuclear energy and the general concept of the cell nucleus. But nuclear speckles? Not so much. According to 黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL) Assistant Professor Katherine Alexander, that鈥檚 to be expected.
鈥淚 give talks to scientists鈥攑eople who study DNA,鈥� Alexander explains. 鈥淎nd often at the end of my talk, someone comes up to me and says, 鈥榃ow! I didn鈥檛 know what a nuclear speckle was.鈥� And so it鈥檚 totally fine that none of you have heard of this, because even people in my field have not.鈥�
However, that could be about to change. Alexander鈥檚 recent findings suggest that these 鈥渙bscure鈥� structures, present in every cell nucleus in your body, could tell us something about kidney cancer. In particular, the nuclear speckle patterns Alexander discovered could one day help doctors determine which kind of cancer treatment will work best for patients diagnosed with this disease. How鈥檚 that for obscurity?
Press play for a closer look at 鈥淭he hidden world inside our cells.鈥� And be sure to sign up for the next installment of Cocktails & Chromosomes as CSHL returns to Industry Lounge in Huntington, NY, on March 27. Associate Professor Jessica Tollkuhn will be there with us to talk about sex hormones in the brain and how they can affect behavior and mental health.