Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Mollie Woodworth: Only I Knew
Season 2010 Episode 36 | 2m 26s | Video has closed captioning.
Mollie Woodworth: Only I Knew
Aired: 09/20/10
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers
Season 2010 Episode 36 | 2m 26s | Video has closed captioning.
Mollie Woodworth: Only I Knew
Aired: 09/20/10
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning
(dramatic music) - When I was in high school, I wrote, you know in 10 years I'm gonna be doing my PhD in biology at Stanford university.
And then one of my teachers told me, "Oh, in California, they have earthquakes."
(dramatic music) I kind of had a problem with that.
So I ended up here in Boston and it's worked out well there have been no earthquakes so far.
So I'm a graduate student.
And my thesis lab is working on the development of the cortex in the mouse, which is the the part of the brain that is on top and is the seed of a higher cognitive learning and thinking.
One thing that really gets me jazzed about my work is that essentially we're studying this organ and it's a computer, but it's made out of meat.
There are thousands of different types of cells and we're studying how they develop and how they're different from each other.
The idea is that if we can produce healthy neurons that then we'd be able to treat or possibly cure diseases like lou Gehrig's disease.
(upbeat music) We know that there are certain proteins that are expressed specifically in different types of neurons.
So I took my slice of brain, we can slice it on a machine, that's sort of like a deli slicer.
And I looked at it under the microscope, and so I could see that some cells were green and some cells were red.
So, you know, some cells had one protein and some cells had another protein, but none of them had both, to me that meant that they used to be one protein, but now they've diverged and they do two different functions.
I knew this and no one else in the world, you know even of the members of my lab, and then I had to go home, so, I'm standing there on the subway car really excited about this experiment.
And I was bouncing up and down, I mean, I was so excited and I was just thinking about the fact that like of all the people on the subway car, I'm the only person who knows what the expression pattern of CTIP2 and CTIP1 one look like, and I just thought to myself, I'm just gonna raise my hand And I'll say people.
(bell rings) CTIP1 is expressed all through layer six of the cortex.
You have to be careful in Boston because you never know, maybe somebody from another lab who knows these things is actually on the subway car.
(bright upbeat music)