HeLa Cells are Awesome

Lately I have been reading about the history of divergent cells lineages within research over the past 75 years. I came upon the HeLa cells (which I had worked with in tissue culture research.) Turns out they initially came from the cervical cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks during the early stages of molecular biology research in the early 50's.

They are particularly awesome because they are biologically immortal - a product an an enzyme called telomerase which keeps the telomeres (repeating segments of DNA that cap the ends of chromosomes) from shortening during replication. Repeated telomere wear and tear is one of the leading causes of cell age and death. Beause HeLa cells don't have to worry about it, they can reproduce endlessly given sufficient conditions to do so.

Because they are prolific and adaptive, they have become a major contaminant in most cell strains today - and as large as 10% of any known cell line might have arisen from/has some HeLa cells inside of it. This actually caused a big Cold War hullaballoo after the restrictions on Soviet/US cancer research was relaxed in the 70's. Not having seen HeLa cells before, the Soviets thought the US researchers were trying to conduct biological warfare by sending them infected samples. When they isolated the HeLa cells and saw their unique capabilities they thought the US had engineered some super cell.

So as awesome as all that information is, here's what really blows my mind - that Henrietta Lacks is still living all over the world in different laboratories, and seeing how her contribution to research science has effectively made her immortal.

Awesome.

How Research Relates to My Drawing

With a little bit more time on my hands I have had the opportunity to both draw more and focus in on my research. First - a redux of what I do research wise.

I work with Alberto Bosque, a post-doctorate fellow from Spain who is over here on commission of the Spanish Departmente of Health, who Vicente Planelles (the PI of the lab and also Spanish) personally wanted to work with because he is a brilliant and laid back dude.

One cool cat.

Alberto is researching the latency pathways in the HIV life cycle. To explain what we are doing requires a little background. The HIV virus (shown below) binds to the T cells (and more specifically the CD4+ memory cells) in your immune system. Because the outer layer glycoproteins so closely resemble those of your own cells, they are not destroyed and will bind to the membrane of the host cell. They then inject the viral capsid into the cell, which degrades. There is now some free RNA floating in the cell with a reverse transcriptase attached (more on that guy in a second.) Since cells have all kinds of RNA floating around it doesn't concern itself with where the RNA came from, because free RNA is free RNA.

So the reverse transcriptase tells the cell "Hey you know where I go? In the nucleus! And while I'm there you should integrate me into your genome!" The cell, being stupid (or blissfully ignorant depending on how you look at it) says "Dur yeah let's do that." and you now have the coding regions for HIV in this cell.

HIV has a small genome, only encoding for 19 different proteins (any cell in your body codes for about 40-400 different proteins depending on the cell). Like most viruses it hijacks the host cell machinery to make copies of itself. On a related note, the other half of the lab is doing research on the Vpr coding region and it's function on expression and regulation of viral production - which is hotly debated.

So, say you have some HIV in your cells and don't want it going into full blown AIDS - currently your two options are 1) seek out the Ancient Chalice of Zhara'Gruum or 2) go on a system of Highly Active Anti-Retoviral Treatments (HAART) which are extremely time consuming and costly. What these treatments do is block the expression of the integrated HIV genes, preventing them from reproducing and infecting more cells. This is called the 'latent' phase of HIV - meaning that it is present and has the capability for reproducing but NOT expressing any of the genes for coding of the proteins.

The catch however, is that once you stop taking the HAART medications, the virus reactivates and starts coding again. Even if you took the drugs for years and years and waited for the turnover of infected cells to be replaced by non-infected cells there is still a chance that one of the billions of cells in your body has the HIV genome inside of it, and as any zombie aficionado knows, it only takes one to start a new infection.

We know exactly how to drive the viral genes into latency, but how it comes out of latency is a whole different matter entirely - they use different signaling pathways. That's where my work with Alberto comes in - I am currently designing lines of cells with a particular genomic makeup to uptake parts of the HIV genome, then mess with the signaling pathways to single out different molecules that are both necessary AND sufficient (this phrase is branded into every cellular biologist's flesh) for coming out of latency.

Basically what I have been doing for the last 3 months is doing a series of mutations in a plasmid (circular ring of DNA) called pMACS-Kk which is in an E. Coli organism. So far I have introduced 3 different restriction sites into the plasmid, effectively making it pMACS-Kk-NcoI-XhoI-NotI. This is important because the spacing of these restriction sites along the plasmid will determine how the HIV genome is integrated and how I can target my signaling proteins. I am on the last step of confirming I have the mutations I want, at which point I can begin to introduce the HIV coding regions I want.

Aww they're so cute and fuzzy!

What the hell does this have to do with art and life?

Everything I do in the lab is focused on my two favorite buzz words: process and magnitude. The research I am doing is very focused on process - perfecting the processes I carry out in the lab and a search to understand the processes happening at a cellular/molecular level. The magnitudes involved are on the order of 10^-8 (messing around with different base pairs) to 10^6 (the amount of cells I can fit in a single millilitre of media). Research shows me how process occurs in different magnitudes and the interrelations involved.

My art is likewise affected - I see processes in the microscope that make me pause and think 'that is beautiful' and as I draw what I saw begins to appear - bubbling out of the primordial doodles. The rough wrinkles of the lipid membrane budding with HIV virons - a tentacled lymphocyte attached - could be an octopus clinging onto a coral reef or nebulae rich with stars obscured by interstellar dust clouds. The forms I see under the microscope mirror as the ones I see through a telescope. It's all a question of magnitude.

With that in mind here's what I have been drawing that is influenced by my research.

I drew this after a week of learning how to split and culture two very difficult but important types of cells - HeLa (pronounced like Gila) and 293 FTR. I was using a very high precision light microscope and could see huge clusters of cells (the cells get attached to a foci and like to clump together - it's a real pain in the ass.)

My side notes said I was really frustrated (with research or art?) but looking back i really enjoyed this. The big sphere in the middle looks similar to binary star systems or the nucleus surrounded by the endoplasmic reticulum.

I spend a lot of time looking at diagrams of cell surface proteins, and they always look very boring and static. You can see one above in the HIV viron, little green balls on sticks protruding from a purple circle. Boring. I always think of the cellular envelope as this ocean of flowing protein, with receptors and surface proteins as buoys bobbing around.

I look at this and see a cocoon. Cocoons have nothing to do with my research.

And this is a drawing of one of my rats, Bjorngaard, and DNA Helicase 'unzipping' some DNA. Then I just doodled.