Cell race

The Curie Cancer Research Institute (France) has just concluded the world's first cell race register.

'Competition rules ' are strictly regulated by the organizing committee: chemical chemical stimulants must not be used. In return, all genotypes are welcome. According to Le Figaro , the unique idea of ​​a cell race came with two members of the organizers after attending a scientific seminar. It may sound strange but the goal of the 'tournament' is serious: consider the mobility of cells , a topic that attracts many researchers' attention. This is an important factor in understanding how immune system cells move when they ' track ' the bacteria that have just entered the body or the metastasis rate of cancer cells to grow. tumors.

The cell race helps the scientific community to better understand the activity of the immune system or tumor metastasis - (Photo: Reuters)

After the book, about 40 research labs around the world registered to attend and sent 'athletes' through the post office to compete in 1 in 6 laboratories in the UK, Germany, USA, France and Singapore. . 'Racetrack' is about 0.4mm long lines drawn with a special protein on ultra-thin glass slides. This protein has been studied before, ensuring enough "gravity" that the cell only moves on the track without crossing over to another environment. In addition, according to Curie expert Matthieu Piel, in order to create unity, the labs taking the race will have a temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, suitable for mammalian cells and ideal for Biomedical research. All of the conditions of the 'motor field' will make the race virtually confined to two types of cells: leukocytes and cells of metastatic tumors.

The movement of the participating cells will be recorded by specialized camcorders within 24 hours. Cells that pass a 0.1mm section on the track with the shortest time will become the champion. According to current studies, the highest rate of cells is about 10 micrometers per minute, equivalent to 60 parts per billion km / hour. The tournament results will be announced at the Cell Biology Conference in Denver (USA) in December.

The organizers intend on upcoming competitions that will regulate laboratory environment conditions suitable for other cell types such as fruit fly cells, cells of some amphibians .