7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006
One summer in the 1960s a young Japanese researcher, with the help of a few high school students, chopped up ten thousand jellyfish. As a by-product of this harvest, they isolated a green fluorescent protein (GFP). Since then, GFP has triggered a revolution in our understanding of gene expression an...
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| Format: | Learning Object |
| Language: | en-US |
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2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148357 |
| _version_ | 1826196640409583616 |
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| author | Howarth, Mark Leung, Anthony |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology Howarth, Mark Leung, Anthony |
| author_sort | Howarth, Mark |
| collection | MIT |
| description | One summer in the 1960s a young Japanese researcher, with the help of a few high school students, chopped up ten thousand jellyfish. As a by-product of this harvest, they isolated a green fluorescent protein (GFP). Since then, GFP has triggered a revolution in our understanding of gene expression and signaling in live cells. In this seminar, we will examine how this small protein generates fluorescence, i.e. absorbs light of one wavelength and emits light of a longer wavelength. We will discuss how the color palette has been extended from green to blue, red and many other colors, based on protein engineering of GFP and the study of vividly colorful coral reefs. We will then investigate how these fluorescent proteins can be used to track the motion of DNA, RNA and protein in living cells, as well as to see waves of signaling molecules propagate across a cell. GFP is also a powerful tool for fluorescent imaging of whole organisms, from worms to mice, and we will see how it has been used in tracking the spread of cancer cells, controlling malaria and in understanding how neuronal connections form. In this seminar, we will explore this wonderful protein as well as other important methods and reagents for fluorescent imaging. This course is one of many Advanced Undergraduate Seminars offered by the Biology Department at MIT. These seminars are tailored for students with an interest in using primary research literature to discuss and learn about current biological research in a highly interactive setting. Many instructors of the Advanced Undergraduate Seminars are postdoctoral scientists with a strong interest in teaching. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T10:31:01Z |
| format | Learning Object |
| id | mit-1721.1/148357 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en-US |
| last_indexed | 2025-03-10T08:53:52Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1483572025-02-27T20:42:09Z 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action Howarth, Mark Leung, Anthony Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology Green Fluorescent Protein Fluorescent protein engineering Photoconversion fluorescent protein variants fluorescent microscopy facility Quantitative fluorescent imaging ultra-sensitive fluorescent imaging high-throughput analysis Fluorescent imaging in living organisms phycoerythrin phytochrome jellyfish red fluorescent protein photoactivation chromophore protonation lysosomes recombinant protein molecules 260101 Biology/Biological Sciences, General One summer in the 1960s a young Japanese researcher, with the help of a few high school students, chopped up ten thousand jellyfish. As a by-product of this harvest, they isolated a green fluorescent protein (GFP). Since then, GFP has triggered a revolution in our understanding of gene expression and signaling in live cells. In this seminar, we will examine how this small protein generates fluorescence, i.e. absorbs light of one wavelength and emits light of a longer wavelength. We will discuss how the color palette has been extended from green to blue, red and many other colors, based on protein engineering of GFP and the study of vividly colorful coral reefs. We will then investigate how these fluorescent proteins can be used to track the motion of DNA, RNA and protein in living cells, as well as to see waves of signaling molecules propagate across a cell. GFP is also a powerful tool for fluorescent imaging of whole organisms, from worms to mice, and we will see how it has been used in tracking the spread of cancer cells, controlling malaria and in understanding how neuronal connections form. In this seminar, we will explore this wonderful protein as well as other important methods and reagents for fluorescent imaging. This course is one of many Advanced Undergraduate Seminars offered by the Biology Department at MIT. These seminars are tailored for students with an interest in using primary research literature to discuss and learn about current biological research in a highly interactive setting. Many instructors of the Advanced Undergraduate Seminars are postdoctoral scientists with a strong interest in teaching. 2023-03-06T17:28:46Z 2023-03-06T17:28:46Z 2006-12 2023-03-06T17:28:52Z Learning Object 7.341-Fall2006 7.341 IMSCP-MD5-52c6949a7f9cd06f211c0215560210c7 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148357 en-US http://www.core.org.cn/OcwWeb/Biology/7-341Fall-2006/CourseHome/index.htm This site (c) Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023. Content within individual courses is (c) by the individual authors unless otherwise noted. 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Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ text/plain text/html image/jpeg image/jpeg text/html text/html text/html text/html text/html text/html application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream application/octet-stream text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/css text/html image/png image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/png image/png image/png image/jpeg image/gif image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/png image/png image/gif image/gif image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/jpeg image/gif image/png image/jpeg image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/png image/png image/jpeg image/gif image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/png image/gif application/octet-stream image/gif image/gif image/png image/gif image/gif image/gif image/png image/png application/octet-stream image/gif image/gif image/gif image/gif image/png image/gif image/gif application/octet-stream image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png application/rdf+xml; charset=utf-8 text/html image/png image/png image/jpeg image/png image/png image/png image/png image/png text/html text/html Fall 2006 |
| spellingShingle | Green Fluorescent Protein Fluorescent protein engineering Photoconversion fluorescent protein variants fluorescent microscopy facility Quantitative fluorescent imaging ultra-sensitive fluorescent imaging high-throughput analysis Fluorescent imaging in living organisms phycoerythrin phytochrome jellyfish red fluorescent protein photoactivation chromophore protonation lysosomes recombinant protein molecules 260101 Biology/Biological Sciences, General Howarth, Mark Leung, Anthony 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title | 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title_full | 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title_fullStr | 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title_full_unstemmed | 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title_short | 7.341 Brightening up Life: Harnessing the Power of Fluorescence Imaging to Observe Biology in Action, Fall 2006 |
| title_sort | 7 341 brightening up life harnessing the power of fluorescence imaging to observe biology in action fall 2006 |
| topic | Green Fluorescent Protein Fluorescent protein engineering Photoconversion fluorescent protein variants fluorescent microscopy facility Quantitative fluorescent imaging ultra-sensitive fluorescent imaging high-throughput analysis Fluorescent imaging in living organisms phycoerythrin phytochrome jellyfish red fluorescent protein photoactivation chromophore protonation lysosomes recombinant protein molecules 260101 Biology/Biological Sciences, General |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/148357 |
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