Jaideep Mathur
| 24 March, 2011 | Richard P. Grant |
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Probing the behaviour of anything inside a cell can be a bit tricky. Jaideep Mathur, at the University of Guelph, Ontario, has come up with a series of photoconvertible fluorescent probes that can be used inside plant cells. Mathur uses them to study the insides of plant cells. One of these probes is an F-actin marker–my old friend talin (you never forget your first protein): “mEosFP-Based Green-to-Red Photoconvertible Subcellular Probes for Plants“; doi: 10.1104/pp.110.165431.
Mathur also has another paper in F1000, on ‘stromule branching’, a response organelles make in response to stress: Plastid stromule branching coincides with contiguous ER dynamics, doi: 10.1104/pp.110.170480. Here he explains a little about stromules and why they’re important:
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This is a fundamental paradigm shift in scientific thinking that Mathur points to.
While we are busy worrying about global warming and climate change and predicting from half-baked data and proposing alternative models(mostly of the gloom and doom variety that catch media attention !), plants are busy adapting to real-world changes, 24/7 ! I am sure all biological organisms are also doing the same.
They are all responding non-stop, in real-time, to variables.
So, in the long run, plants and animals are obviously better suited to adapting to change than we are(especially homo sapiens who spend their time scientific research ?), since they are continuously using feedback to bolster defense in response to stimuli while we are busy chasing dollars to see where we can get the next grant !
Something to learn here.
In nature, “Response” models are favored over multitude of “Prediction” models.
Wish we would learn from plants and Jaideep Mathur !