Interviewee: Celena Cherian, PhD Candidate, Division of Mobile and Physiological Sciences, Life Sciences Institute, The College of British Columbia| Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Janielle Richards (Weblog Co-coordinators)
Printed: December 6, 2024
Are you able to inform us about your analysis?
Within the animal kingdom, there are intercourse variations in physique measurement throughout many species. That is true for Drosophila (fruit flies) as properly, the place females are bigger than males. Moreover, intercourse variations inside species exist in a number of elements of physiology and metabolism. Due to this fact, my analysis challenge entails exploring intercourse variations in physique measurement utilizing the fruit fly with the intention of elucidating the mechanism for these variations. I’m significantly within the larval adipose tissue biology as it’s important for systemic progress.
What led you to enterprise this analysis?
I used to be trying to find labs that used imaging strategies to check cell biology, and mitochondrial biology particularly. This was the one lab that I got here throughout which employed these strategies whereas exploring intercourse variations. I used to be then struck by the truth that no person was learning intercourse variations on this space. This was the first purpose I wished to do analysis within the space; the analysis was novel and I wished to be concerned in producing information on physiology and metabolism inside females. Moreover, I actually liked the way in which my supervisor wrote her papers. They have been very simple to grasp and I may see how passionate she was about science communication. I used to be offered earlier than I bought into the lab and fortuitously I used to be in a position to safe a place.
Are there any findings within the subject and/or your examine you want to spotlight?
Prior literature exhibits that ribosome and mitochondrial biology within the larval adipose tissue are each vital for mobile progress, organism progress, and physique measurement. Nevertheless, these papers didn’t use each sexes individually and as a substitute blended intercourse populations have been used. Many research additionally classically solely use males to check for metabolism, as a result of feminine hormones have been presumed to be confounding components which has created a niche within the contribution of mitochondrial and ribosome operate in cell progress.
This was the start line for our analysis and up to now we discovered that feminine larval adipose tissue has considerably increased ranges of mitochondrial and ribosomal protein genes than males. We’re at present working to research the mobile significance of this thrilling discovering.
The place do you see your analysis going?
I hope my analysis encourages others to research women and men individually within the subject of metabolism and physiology as information on this space is restricted. I hope to grasp the position of protein synthesis and mitochondrial operate in regulating intercourse variations in progress. I wish to discover which pathways are concerned and in addition have a look at the impact of vitamins on these intercourse variations. Finally, I’m enthusiastic about wanting on the impression of intercourse willpower genes / intercourse chromosomes on these mobile features.
