An Awesome Lady with Cool Research

On Monday, Dr. Oluwatoyosi Muse visited for our Departmental meeting. She presented on her research. The title was "Sequence Selective Recognition of Biologically Relevant RNA by Cationic". It was an incredibly interesting presentation and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

But what was interesting is that for part of her experiment, she used HEK, which are human embryonic kidney cells. I should have asked why she used those cells. Maybe because they were able to highly replicate, or the destination for what she was testing was in there. Either way, it was cool that she has able to retrieve human embryonic kidney cells and test them.

Types of Cell Adhesion

Desmosomes - These are also called macula adherens. An appropriate description would be that they are spot welds. The proteins that make them up include desmogleins, keratin and cadherins. They help in the resistance of force.

Zonula Adherens - These junctions are also known as adherens junctions. They include cadherins, catenin, actin and actinin. Such junctions are strong and are used for anchorage















Zonula Occludens - Also known as tight junctions. They have protein complexes that form to create an impenetrable membrane between cells













Gap Junctions - Also known as macula communicans. They are made up of hydrophilic channels. Such channels help in their function of connecting the cytoplasm of the cells











Hemidesmosome - They are very similar to desmosomes. What differs is that instead of desmogleins, desmopenetrin proteins are used

About Midterm Time

I am struggling. I am struggling to stay afloat this semester. So much is going on in but mostly outside of the classroom. People are pressuring me with many other tasks when I'm just trying to take care of my own business. All I can do is sleep just to stay sane. Ugh.

Overall, I'm not doing well in the class. I'm behind in assignments. But what is really bothering me is that I haven't found a great way to study yet. Reading the book helps, but I'm not retaining the information very well. I need to figure this out quickly. Or maybe I'm doing alright. Who knows. Maybe my grade on the first exam will be able to provide me with some insight.

Please pray for me.