Laura-Nadine Schuhmacher
Laura is currently pursuing a PhD in Pharmacology/Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. She is interested in how adaptations of “weird animals” have evolved, and having looked at retinal development in blind cave fish before, she’s now researching how naked mole rats have adapted to hypoxia.
Articles by Laura-Nadine Schuhmacher:
Analyzing Apoptosis – A Review of Analytical Techniques
Now that we’ve learned about the role of apoptosis in good health and disease, it will be useful to know how we can detect apoptosis in cells or organisms. A variety of apoptosis detection kits are commercially available, and here is a roundup of how they work: TUNEL and DNA damage assays The TUNEL assay…
Apoptosis Gone Wrong: Cell Death’s Role in Disease
Like yin and yang, apoptosis has a duality. While it is is a pathway used in the normal maintenance and development of tissues in healthy organisms it also had a dark side. As you can imagine, apoptosis is a tightly regulated process – controlled by the integration of multiple pro- and anti-apoptotic signals. Ultimately the induction…
Life or Death? Apoptosis in Healthy Organisms
Everybody has to die at some point. But fortunately, the death of a cell does not mean the end of the organism, at least for us metazoans. Indeed, controlled cell death a.k.a apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is an integral part of the biology of all organisms, from nematodes on up. Apoptosis is central to…
Cell lysis 101: 8 methods to break down cell walls
In Part 1, I introduced the types of cell walls out there and what they are made of – now it’s time to learn how to get through them. 1. Mechanical methods of cell disruption Mechanical cell disruption is really just that: forcing open the cell wall and spilling the contents. The advantage to mechanical…
Cell lysis 101: 5 types of cell walls you need to understand
Did you ever encounter resistance from a mammalian cell line when trying to extract the contents? Probably not, because destroying cell membranes is easy. Cell walls however are a different story. They are rigid, protective layers that can be so strong that the organism gives up movement in favour of protection! Cell walls exist in…