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Wellcome Image Awards 2017 Tough Separation
21 March 2017

Tough Separation

In order to grow or heal a wound, our cells need to divide. It’s a careful, but violent process that rips a parent cell apart into two ‘daughters’. This nucleus of a human lung cell is trying to separate from another (not visible) daughter cell during division, or mitosis. But something has gone wrong – the DNA usually shared among daughter cells has been caught between them, and it’s structural material (chromatin) unravels into fibre-like bunches, highlighted in bright colours. The nucleus struggles in a tug of war, pulling at one end of the DNA – the stress is so great that it deforms into a teardrop shape. 3D structured illumination microscopy uses patterns of laser light to discriminate the bumps and ridges in this tiny biology. Such techniques are helping to rewrite the textbooks on development and disease, as previously 'known' biological processes are revisited for a fresh look.

Written by John Ankers

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What is BPoD?

BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.