This picture was taken at the top of the UP biological research building. You can see CHOP across the street.....across the way. The red building and the green glass building are part of CHOP.
After Joseph's pre-op appointment today, we got to go to this really cool lab. One of the other pilots where he works has a brother who runs a lab at the University of Pennsylvania, which just happens to be right across from CHOP here in Philadelphia. The electron microscope is broken, but he told us all about how it works, etc. This guy is an MD and a PhD-- and so down to earth! He showed us the cell lines they have (skin cells) and explained how they get them and grow them!!!!! He explained that the genetic variants that occur when these cells replicate and don;t die out, actually help them. His lab works with toxoplasmosis, a parasite..... We had to be very careful because it can cause problems in immune compromised hosts....so the boys could not touch any of the sterile containers that contained the toxoplasmosis (even though they are sterile, they wanted to be sure).
It was so cool-- we were able to look at the cells through two different microscopes and see the DNA strands!We got to see mitosis!!!! SO AWESOME. We saw the toxoplasmosis during metaphase and anaphase. It was just so cool. As we looked at this one cell, it started out in Metaphase and then moved into anaphase. Anaphase takes about 30-40 minutes, so we did not watch the entire process of anaphase.This guy was just wonderful with the kids. Joseph was asking questions about what he saw in the microscope field & he would look and try to figure out what he was talking about, so he then had J draw what he saw and then looked in and said, "OH! I know exactly what you are talking about......" SO nice.
Did you know that 30% of the population is infected with toxoplasmosis? and that 10 to 15 % of all meat at the supermarket is infected? Cooking it thoroughly destroys it.
We got to see the toxoplasmosis infecting cells! The banana shaped cells go in search for a cell to infect. They push into the cell membrane like a balloon and as they do this, they somehow cleanse the cell membrane and push in and cause the cell to engulf it. This is why the body doesn't respond to toxoplasmosis.... it can't be seen, because the cell is surrounding it & because of the cleaning of the cell membrane, it can't put out the *signals*/ markers that it has been invaded to let other cells (like neutrophils, etc) know it has been invaded. There is no inflammation response to toxoplasmosis because of this. The toxoplasmosis then takes over control of transport across the cell membrane!Once it is engulfed by the cell, it starts replicating...so we saw the banana shaped cells trying to find cells...and we saw them replicating inside the human skin cells. they replicate over and over....(we saw some cells that were really full!) Once the cell is full, the toxoplasmosis lyses the cell & it explodes, releasing lots of the parasite to go and infect other cells and it starts all over again.
Yes, I took notes! LOL I'm a nerd. This was SO cool.
When a pregnant woman is infected for the first time during her pregnancy, the baby is usually born with neurological problems. BUT if the woman already has toxoplasmosis and gets pregnant, the baby is fine. They are trying to understand many things about this parasite. It is in the same class as malaria, except, more people have this disease. They want to understand why the baby is infected......he talked about this...and how they want to find a drug that won't stop human cells from replicating, but that can stop the toxoplasmosis from replicating.
While they cannot come to the conclusion that it has neurological effects on people who have it (no infection symptoms!), they believe that it may! 1) it causes neurological damage to babies in the womb when mothers contract the disease the first time and 2) they know that infected mice no longer are afraid of cats!!! They think that it might be an effect of the parasite on the mouse to get itself eaten so that it can replicate. For humans, we are a dead end....... we can't be eaten.... but they believe it may have other effects on us neurologically. It is interesting because they have studied this......and the non-affected mice are afraid of cats..... weird stuff!It was absolutely cool! We got to see the hood where they do a lot of work -- so that they don't contaninate the specimens. Saw where they keep some of the cells frozen.amazing stuff. absolutely amazing.
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