Stepping Inside a Cell

Accustomed to viewing cells through a microscope, a group of students and faculty from the Department of Biological Sciences has been thinking on a grander scale. Inspired by this year’s Spring Carnival theme, “How Things Work,” they constructed a booth that transports visitors inside a cell. The entrance to the booth is a microscope; the threshold is the microscope’s slide. Once inside the “cell,” visitors are immersed in black light that illuminates the cell’s organelles, causing the nucleus, mitochondria and ribosomes to glow. By stepping further inside the cell, willing participants can play a game akin to Plinko (made famous by the Price is Right). A drop of the ball (in this case a protein) sends it bouncing along a path through the Golgi, an organelle that transports proteins inside the cell. Winners’ proteins are secreted; losers’ proteins are degraded.

“Our booth is a nice way to reach out to people who aren’t biologists and teach them about biology and biological techniques,” said David Hill, a senior biological sciences major who played a large part in the booth’s construction. “Plus, it just looks really cool.”

The Biological Sciences Student Advisory Council (BioSAC) first conceived of the idea months ago, and nearly 50 people have had a had in the booth’s construction, including Elizabeth Jones (university professor and department head), Amy Burkert (associate department head), William Brown (professor) and Peter Berget (associate professor). The booth opens at 3 p.m., Thursday, April 14, and will remain open through Saturday, April 16.

Amy Pavlak
April 15, 2005

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