CCB Brown Bag Seminar

1st speaker:  Amin Kolahdouz, Ph.D., Associate Research Scientist, DevDy

Topic:  A few can sometimes move a lot: Dynein/microtubule-based directional transport in confinement

There are many circumstances at cellular and subcellular levels in which a viscous cytoplasmic flow is stirred or moved by the action of the cytoskeletal assembly. Such activity driven transport, together with confinement and collective effects, can mitigate the ineffectiveness of diffusion-based transport in the crowded cell environment, and in the case of larger cells, yield large-scale net bulk flow, known as cytoplasmic streaming or cyclosis. Using a simple model, I will discuss an under-recognized streaming mechanism facilitated by microtubule-dynein assembly within cytoplasmic bridges, one example of which has been experimentally observed in connecting nurse cell-oocyte during Drosophila oogenesis.



2nd speaker: Natalie Sauersald, Ph.D., Flatiron Research Fellow, Genomics

Topic: Spatial transcriptomics analysis of healthy and cancerous mouse mammary gland

Recent spatial transcriptomics technologies have enabled transcriptome-wide sequencing that preserves critical spatial context information, allowing for a new level of discovery in both healthy tissue and disease contexts. In close collaboration with the lab of Dr. Yibin Kang, I have been analyzing spatial transcriptomics and single-cell RNA-seq data of mouse mammary glands, both in healthy tissue samples and a breast cancer model. There is currently no spatial transcriptomic study in mouse mammary glands, and much remains unknown in both healthy and cancerous tissue. In this talk, I will go through our initial results suggesting the presence of myelinating Schwann cells in healthy mammary glands, which have not previously been characterized.