Research Remix

A short video summarizing the Research Remix program - inspiring collaboration between artists and scientists. 

Trenton Jung’s interpretation of Jocelyne DiRuggiero’s research into Martian geology. 

The random mosaic of color detecting cells within the Drosophila Melanogaster retina is controlled by the stochastic expression of the transcription factor spineless (ss) within R7 cells. How ss is expressed in 67% of R7s is not well understood. Previous studies have shown that ss expression is highly variable between wild fly lines. Using GWAS to learn more about what underlies this variation, I discovered a single candidate SNP within the ss locus that is found predominantly in lines with low ss expression. This variant lies within a putative insulator element as well as adjacent to a binding motif for the Wilms’ Tumor Suppressor homolog known as Klumpfuss (Klu), suggesting it may play a regulatory role. Expression data showed that klu is ex- pressed early in R7s around the time that ss is expressed. klu null mutants exhibit ~80% ss, whereas overexpression of Klu with the use of eye, klu and R7 specific driv- ers results in ~45% ss suggesting that Klu negatively regulates spineless. We will test the hypothesis that Klu binds to the ss locus to repress ss expression either directly or through disrupting insulator mediated looping. Finally, we also plan to elucidate the relationship between the low ss SNP and Klu binding to the locus.

Murat Bilgel has been working on visualizing the progression of Amyloid deposition in the cerebral cortex using the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging (BLSA) data, seehttp://www.blsa.nih.gov/. This data has been collected for over 50 years. I am inspired by the personalities beyond this data . I use old photographs of men and women, young and old, baby, couples, family and lovers and create layers on those pictures. I draw neurons, Amyloid, plaques, using embroidery threads, encaustic, markers, water colors, asking the question: what is inside, what is outside, what is visible, what is invisible, what is understandable, what is not?

The temporal ordering of changes in amyloid deposition has not been thoroughly investigated on the whole-brain scale. Objective: Investigate the temporal trajectories of cerebral fibrillar amyloid at the voxel level and the ordering of voxelwise changes

Stay tuned for more information, but there will be lots more amazing work, including paintings, fibers, sculpture and digital animations!

Cone cells in the human retina are responsible for perceiving color via opsin proteins that are sensitive to different wavelengths of light – blue, red, or green. Each cone cell expresses only one type of opsin, the choice of which is made at random via poorly understood stochastic gene regulatory mechanisms (Kainz 1998, Brainard 2000, Deeb 2005). The relative amount and distribution of cone cell subtypes within the retina dictates both visual acuity and the ability to judge color differences (Roor- da 1999, Brainard 2000). Understanding how cone cell identity is chosen will give us insight into retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa as well as visual deficiencies due to disrupted cone cell distribution within in the human eye. We believe that there could be multiple mechanisms involved in stochastic opsin choice including but not limited to nuclear localization, transcription factor activa- tion, and selective activation by DNA looping of enhancer regions. We will use in- duced retinal cups derived from human pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a model system to investigate the mechanisms controlling stochastic expression of opsins in the human eye.

Inspired by research by Echoes in x-ray speckles track nanometer-scale plastic events in concentrated colloidal gels under shear  by Michael C. Rogers, Kui Chen, Lukasz Andrzejewski, Suresh Narayanan, Subramanian Ramakrishnan, Robert L. Leheny, James L. Harden.

Check out this video we made about the project so far. See clips from the kickoff reception and learn about sentient eyeballs in a dish!

The random mosaic of color detecting cells within the Drosophila Melanogaster retina is controlled by the stochastic expression of the transcription factor spineless (ss) within R7 cells. How ss is expressed in 67% of R7s is not well understood. Previous studies have shown that ss expression is highly variable between wild fly lines. Using GWAS to learn more about what underlies this variation, I discovered a single candidate SNP within the ss locus that is found predominantly in lines with low ss expression. This variant lies within a putative insulator element as well as adjacent to a binding motif for the Wilms’ Tumor Suppressor homolog known as Klumpfuss (Klu), suggesting it may play a regulatory role. Expression data showed that klu is ex- pressed early in R7s around the time that ss is expressed. klu null mutants exhibit ~80% ss, whereas overexpression of Klu with the use of eye, klu and R7 specific driv- ers results in ~45% ss suggesting that Klu negatively regulates spineless. We will test the hypothesis that Klu binds to the ss locus to repress ss expression either directly or through disrupting insulator mediated looping. Finally, we also plan to elucidate the relationship between the low ss SNP and Klu binding to the locus.

Amy Ryu interprets Mark Neyrinck's Origami Cosmic Web - a project using origami to help understand the spatial relationships of deep space and dark mater. 

More art and science at JHU: Hopkins Symphony Orchestra co-commissioned 'Cosmic Dust,' a 14-minute work inspired by Hubble

Jed Gaylin, Hopkins Symphony Orchestra 

If Art Married Science: Jennifer Fairman's beautifully designed venn diagram from her presentation at Research Remix last week. 

Artist: Sam Holmes

Joshua Fetzer : Visualizing Turbulence