🌟 Everyday is a Bones Day with Jessica Henty-Ridilla: Episode 191 of Under the Microscope 🔬

What to Expect:

In this episode, Jessica Henty-Ridilla delves into her research on the cytoskeleton and its role in neurodegenerative diseases. Jessica shares her journey from plant biology to neurobiology and discusses her work on understanding the regulation of actin and microtubules in cells.

About the Guest:

🌟 Key Takeaways from This Episode:

• Cytoskeleton Research: Investigating the regulation of actin and microtubules in cells.
• Career Journey: From plant biology to neurodegenerative research.
• Favorite Experiment: Exploring the role of TDP-43 in regulating the cytoskeleton.

🔬 In This Episode, We Cover:

Jessica’s Research

Jessica’s research focuses on understanding the regulation of actin and microtubules in cells. These proteins are crucial for maintaining cell shape, division, and movement. Her work aims to uncover how their regulation goes awry in neurodegenerative diseases, such as ALS, and other disorders.

Jessica’s Career Journey

Jessica’s academic journey began with a Bachelor’s in Plant Biology. She pursued her passion for the cytoskeleton, leading her to study its regulation in neurodegenerative diseases. Her diverse experiences have enriched her research perspectives and expertise.

Jessica’s Favourite Research Experiment

Jessica’s favorite experiment involves exploring the role of TDP-43 in regulating the cytoskeleton. TDP-43 is a protein that gets misregulated in many neurodegenerative diseases. Her work aims to understand how this protein influences the cytoskeleton and its potential role in disease mechanisms.

Life as a Scientist: Beyond the Lab

Jessica values the collaborative nature of scientific research and enjoys engaging with the global scientific community. She is passionate about teaching and mentoring the next generation of scientists and values the opportunities to solve complex biological puzzles.

Jessica’s 3 Wishes

1. Increased funding for research: Jessica wishes for more financial support to advance innovative research projects.
2. Greater collaboration between researchers: She advocates for stronger partnerships to enhance knowledge sharing and collaborative efforts in research.
3. Improved public understanding of scientific research: Jessica emphasizes the importance of public awareness and support for scientific advancements.

Jessica’s Time on @RealSci_Nano

Jessica will be taking over the RealSci_Nano Twitter account to share her research on the cytoskeleton and its implications in neurodegenerative diseases. Followers can expect to learn about the intricate dance of proteins within cells and the innovative techniques her work focuses on.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hi everyone, I’m Pranoti, host of Under the Microscope. This series is brought to you by the Real Scientists Nano team. Our goal is to provide a platform where scientists can communicate their work and interact with the public. With that in mind, every week we introduce you to a scientist working in the field of materials or nanoscience, who tweets from the Real Scientists Nano Twitter account.

Which is realsci underscore nano.

Hi everyone, my name is Pranavati. I am your host of Under the Microscope podcast series. And, uh, we are switching the, the, the format a little bit. So now you will get one long episode for every curator, every materials or nanoscientist [00:01:00] who is a guest on this podcast. And today we have with us Jessica Henty.

Riddila, who is an assistant professor at the Upstate Medical University, SUNY, which is apparently not called SUNY, it’s called SUNY, which stands for State University New York. So, hi Jessica, welcome to Under the Microscope. How are you? Good. Thank you. Awesome. Is it sunny in sunny? No, it’s actually raining today.

Oh, okay. You got my joke, right? Yes, that was great. Okay, cool. The sun always shines. Um, and I think we have a lot of jokes on on Sunni campuses. Right. Um, enough with the with the jokes. I feel I think we have we have been too harsh on Sunni. And for those who are listening on our podcast, So for those of us who are only listening to the podcast on Spotify, Google podcast or Apple podcast or all other kinds.

Do watch the YouTube video for this funny exchange between Jessica and I about how sunny it is in SUNY. Uh, how it is not sunny in SUNY. Okay, well, nevermind. Let’s get to the science. Jessica, could you please explain your research to [00:02:00] us in super simple words, please? Okay. So, um, in my lab, we study the cells, um, cytoskeleton, which is, um, specifically for us, actin and microtubules.

And these are like the bones of your cell. So we kind of joke in the lab that if you study the cytoskeleton, every day is a bones day. Um, combined these two proteins, actin and actually tubulin, which is the protein that makes microtubules, Um, actually dictate most of the things that a cell does, either its shape, how it moves around, how it divides, um, we are particularly interested in how this regulation goes wrong in neurodegenerative diseases, specifically amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease, but it also gets misregulated in cancer and a lot of other disorders.

Okay. A lot of very complicated sounding, um, diseases and cancer. Okay. Okay. Wait, wait. So you, okay. This is like a [00:03:00] completely new field for me. This is like biology. So a lot of the terms that you use other than bones and cells, uh, and cancer. It was a bit like it was too fast for me. So you, so you study two proteins, which are responsible for bones.

Yeah. So do you know what else you could think of them as Legos? And one might be like the advanced Legos that you graduate to that are really like small pieces. And the other is like slightly bigger pieces. But basically, um, they’re constantly being built just like you can build with Legos. Um, they can get added to one end for the most part.

Um, and there’s proteins that help bring those things together. And there’s proteins that disassemble and recycle them. And just like in, um, in, in like the millennium Falcon Lego kit, you can, there’s only a couple shapes. And I mean, in the case of the cytoskeleton, [00:04:00] there’s like a couple of shapes, but you can build these really elaborate structures from just.

Those little tiny shapes and that’s that’s basically what we look at. It’s really beautiful It’s really pretty to look at that sounds so cool. So but we are not talking about making bones, right? We are Not real bones in a sense there’s cells that have a cytoskeleton that are part of your bones, but This is like if you think of how a a skeleton holds your body up Yeah, these are the proteins that hold your cells up In the same way.

Not the bones up. Right. Right. Okay. And every day is a bones day. Yeah, what was that? Sorry, I missed that part. Um, so, so there was this cute internet meme. I don’t know what’s going on with it. And every day you could, it was either a bones or a no bones day based on this really old pug that if he would sit up, then he was having a bone state.

It was like his body had bones in it. And if he was having a bad day, he kind of like slumped over and it was like, he didn’t have any bones. It was really [00:05:00] cute. And it was supposed to be like a day that you go and take care of yourself. Um, it helps to promote like, um, self care and, and mental health awareness.

It was really cute. Oh, that is so cute. I completely missed this. You should look it up. I think they still tweet every once in a while, but it’s, it’s really great. It was cute. That is so cool. So when things work in your lab, it’s a bones day. When things don’t work, it’s a self care day. Like, okay, bones day.

And it’s a self care day. It means you should like maybe rest and regroup and. Get yourself back together and then try again the next day. And hopefully the next day will be the bone stay. Yes. Wow. Oh, wow. This is so cool. This is so cool. Okay. Okay. So how did you, how did you become the bone doctor? Can I say that?

Uh, no. How did you end up being the professor, uh, at SUNY? Um, close to New York. So how did, how did that happen? Tell us about your career journey so far, bone doctor, bone doctor? No, probably not. Okay. Okay, so basically we started kind of an interesting question about how I ended up [00:06:00] where I am, right? Um, how does a plant biologist Um, so that’s, that’s what my story basically is.

I started my career, um, you know, as an undergrad, I was dissecting a mouse for the first time that was just like sacrificed and doing a DNA extraction in my hand, just kind of like grazed it. And I still felt it’s like warm little body. And it was just a really scary moment for me that I was like, you know what?

I think I’m going to do plants, and I always loved plants. That was one of the things that I got really interested in science about. It turns out the plants have these proteins too. And, um, I specifically studied how the actin proteins, um, which make these nice structures, get disassembled. And it turns out that they get disassembled, um, during a lot of key moments, including when the, when plants are attacked by pathogens.

And that’s really important because we have to eat and if all of our crops get, you know, attacked by pathogens, that’s not very good. Um, so this is one of the first things that pathogens can hijack to do whatever they [00:07:00] want. And I thought that was really cool and really just fell in love with microscopes and, um, this protein, because it’s really beautiful to look at.

And I got to use a lot of fun microscopes. learned a little bit about biochemistry. Um, but that’s when I really like fell in love with the cytoskeleton. Um, and there’s a lot of different proteins that technically make up the cytoskeleton. So I also started, started to get curious about these other proteins too.

And when I went to do a postdoc, I wanted to learn more about biochemistry and this other protein, um, this other component microtubules. And, um, You know, I sort of felt like all of the labs that were getting a lot of airtime at conferences weren’t necessarily doing plant research and plant research is really important.

So I sort of wanted to change it up and try a different model system. And, um, it turns out that neurons are a beautiful system for looking at both actin and microtubules at the same time and how those two things talk to each other. So I got interested in neurons. Um, and I learned about that during my postdoc and then, um, we had some really [00:08:00] great imaging, really cool stories about actin and microtubules talking to each other and how, you know, how that coordination was going specifically in neurons.

And I was able to sort of appreciate that, like, these things are more than just a beautiful architecture, that they have really specific functions. And when those, like, beautiful architectures aren’t there. And so, you know, if you have a gene that’s totally intact, a lot of neurodegenerative diseases happen.

And one of the regulation proteins that we’re really interested in, prophyllin, actually, um, can, can, um, adjust how both actin and microtubules polymerize. And so there’s mutations in that gene that also cause ALS. So in my own lab, I thought that would be the new direction where I could take some of the skills and tools that I’d learned about, but also, you know, look in a more disease relevant way.

So what’s great is it doesn’t matter, matter what model system, a lot of proteins are the same regardless of where you’re studying them from. And some genetic systems are [00:09:00] easier to use than others. And when you kind of, you know, get inspired from other fields, I think it helps you get a different viewpoint that maybe hasn’t totally been looked at before.

So I’m really excited. That’s kind of how we ended up where we, where we are. And I don’t know, Wow. Oh, that’s quite a journey. So you managed to take the best of both worlds and, uh, and I hope you don’t have to work with mice or any other animals anymore to feel their warm body while you, ah. So I think that that’s really important.

Um, but for what we’re interested in, we don’t necessarily need to do that. And we can have a friend that’s like an expert at doing that when we, you know, we build it up in our immortalized cells now. It’s okay. So like, I think it’s important, but it’s not necessarily important for me to be doing that. So that, and you know, as far as plants go, I, even though I have a PhD in plant biology, I still can’t figure out how to keep office plants alive.

So, you know, there’s that. Ha ha ha. That that is that will be such a relieving thing to hear for our listeners, [00:10:00] because a lot of people think that they kill plants. I have lots of friends who are like, I don’t give me a plant. I can’t take care of a plant. And yeah, even a plant biologist, uh, doesn’t always figure out how to keep the plants alive.

I think I just need growth chambers in my office. Like that seemed to be the key.

So basically your journey started as a plant scientist and now you are working on Or your research is like one of the applications is this, uh, neuro degenerative disorders, uh, that you look into. So ALS being one, uh, which are the other ones that you’re looking into? Are there any other ones? So that’s the main focus.

But one of the other proteins that also seems to be regulating actin and microtubules, that’s sort of where we’re going now that that’s published yet. But we’re working on it. Um, it it causes or gets misregulated in 98 percent of all neurodegenerative diseases. Um, I read that [00:11:00] in a different paper. So someone else said that, but I thought that that was really cool.

That protein is called TDP 43. It doesn’t have a very interesting name for the abbreviation, but that protein actually makes these things called biomolecular condensates or liquid phase transitions, which might regulate the cytoskeleton. Some of the early, early studies on those, um, describing that those, um, that phase actually did, um, look at the actin cytoskeleton and some of its regulators.

So, um, we’re sort of looking into since propylene regulates actin and microtubules and this thing makes biomolecular condensates, is that a cool way to maybe get your two cytoskeletons to talk to each other? So that’s the basic side, but then there’s like a nice spin to like, you know, Obviously, if we see how that’s working on a basic level, then what do we do when we have, um, proteins that are harboring the disease mutations and how does it maybe change those [00:12:00] effects?

Uh huh. Okay. It’s not a secret. They, they, actin and microtubules are regulated somehow by TDP 43 and we’re sort of, you know, Um, and I’m just going through the data right now to see exactly what the details of that regulation are. Okay Wow, that is super cool. Um so it sounds to me, Jessica that you’re involved and you have been involved in the past as well in a lot of cool experiments or research projects.

Um so if you have to pick one research project that you’re most proud of. Or the most fun or quirky one. Um, could you pick one? I know it’s a mean thing to us, but could you pick one and explain it to us in simple words in the section we call in other words? Yeah, this is really, this is not very nice. Um, so I’m, I’m proud of everything that we’re doing and like all the things I’ve been a part of and you’re right, there’s been some really cool things and I guess I would just say it’s probably an Outlook thing, right?

Like. like just science is the coolest just in general, but for your in other words section, I guess for right now, the thing I’m the most proud of [00:13:00] is, um, this new foray for us into bio bio molecular condensates. And like, how is that regulating the cytoskeleton? Because that’s sort of really where I think.

My lab is is hopefully going in a place that we get to use the things that we learned from great people in our past, um, but also, like, show that, you know, We can do it because I’m still a new PI and you know figuring it out Okay, so this is like the future thing So next time you’re on the podcast you will be talking about how you figured it out.

That would be great. I hope we do it That sounds amazing. I hope you do. I hope you really do Um, so jessica doing research and publishing and that is like Or doing research in the lab. That is one part of being a scientist or one part of being a professor. There are also other aspects that, uh, come along with it.

So what else do you like about being a scientist? So, um, I really, there’s two things, right? I really like helping people just in general, like. There’s not so many things that really make you feel, at least me, feel really good. It’s like, you [00:14:00] know, if I learn something that I can give to someone else that somehow helps them, that just makes me feel really good.

And that’s really rewarding to me. So I love helping people. And, and as a scientist, you know, there’s lots of people you can help. Like you can help students that are like dipping their toe in the science waters, figure out if they think it’s interesting, you can help the world because you might be solving something about how some puzzle, right?

Like, how is this protein doing this thing? Why is that important on a very basic level, or even like, it could be important for making a drug to treat patients. So, you know, that’s. I just like solving problems. So I like helping people and I like solving problems and you know, the science ones, there’s like not so much drama.

You get to just, you get to learn something that for a moment, no one else knows yet. So that’s kind of cool too. Anyway, those are all the things I like about being a scientist. Uh huh. Okay. Helping people, helping students, um, and being that first one to know the secret that no one [00:15:00] knows. Before you get like a little secret for a minute and then it’s like I’m really bad at keeping secrets.

So it’s like hey Check out this cool thing That is awesome. I think you’re you’re I can’t imagine you from our conversation so far that I know you I can’t imagine you Being anything other than a scientist. It’s just like you are like the perfect, uh, we need scientists like you, who, who enjoy the research and science so much.

I mean, it’s a lot of hard work, so you really have to, you know, be okay with long hours. Sometimes biological things need you, you know. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And speaking of hard work, um, if you had three wishes to improve your research experience, what would you ask for? And I’m not promising anything here.

Okay. Okay. So, um, unlimited microscopes, not because you need fancy microscopes to do good science. It’s just, I believe that more microscopes are always better. It’s, it’s just, I really love using microscopes. It’s really fun. Um, limited funding because, you know, sometimes, you know, it’s, it’s sort of nice, like when [00:16:00] I first got my, my, my grant, it was awesome.

And sort of, I breathed a sigh of relief because I knew that. It was, it was going to be okay. Like my students in my lab could make some mistakes now. And it wasn’t going to, you know, we, we were going to have the money we needed for them to make as many mistakes as they hopefully not too many, but the mistakes they needed to learn something, but also like move the science forward.

Um, and like, just not having to worry about that is sort of a, you know, that’s a pretty big thought. Like, I didn’t understand when I was a graduate student or a postdoc, like, yes, funding was important. But when you’re sort of responsible for paying people, that’s a little, it makes it a little scarier.

Definitely. I think the third thing, which, you know, is maybe a little abstract would be conversations like with all scientists throughout history. Cause I just think it would be, it’d be really cool being like, Hey, Aristotle, what do you think about today? What do you think about this problem? Like, couldn’t it, like, it would have been cool.

Like Einstein, how would you solve this? Yeah, any of them. That’s a very cool one. We have never had that one. That’s a really cool one. That’s really, really cool. So, [00:17:00] microscopes, unlimited microscope. Microscopes. Give me your top three favorite microscopes. And don’t give me this, I like all microscopes and this microscope.

No, no, no, no. Top three microscopes. Yeah, that’s tricky. You can start with like a three to one. It depends on the experiment. Okay. So, so, I’ll say, Okay. What is a turf microscope because that was really the microscope that like I got excited about doing microscopy with and it’s really versatile. You can do biochemistry on a cover slip.

You could also look at cells. You could also, um, shoot them with lasers. Oh, what is that? What is what is turf stand for? Because I know I’m a material scientist. I know electron microscope optical microscope. The most I know about biology is two photon microscope. Those are nice too. Um, so TIRF stands for Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence.

Um, so basically you image a really small part of your [00:18:00] sample, about 100 nanometers from the cover slip. And the way you do it is the laser gets reflected back and it makes an evanescent wave. And so it’s not really the laser that’s like doing it, but it’s this evanescent wave. And the evanescent wave.

goes into your sample and decays exponentially. And the reason that’s really cool is you get this really great signal to noise ratio. So like everything looks really crisp and clear, but you only get one like Z plane, if you will. There’s something like the bottom of the cell or like something on the surface of a cell.

It’s really great for that. Okay, turf microscope. So turf, and then some kind of like confocal, I would prefer spinning disc because I have a need for speed. Um, and in dynamics, even though it might not be as pretty of an image, it’s always more beautiful because you get more information. I don’t know. It has, maybe.

Something, something really high res, like maybe cryo, although I’ve never done that. Um, but that would be cool if I could do it again. I would learn more about coding and I would totally do cryo m ’cause [00:19:00] that would be sweet High oem. Oh my God. We did that during my PhD. I did that. I had like a hard sell on like a recording device and we did like a cross section.

to see how the, the, the heart cell, the cardiomyocyte, um, cardiomyocyte was sitting on the electrode from which we recorded activity. It was so cool. Oh my God. That’s amazing. That was so cool. Oh my God. It was so cool. Okay. I just realized that the podcast is called under the microscope and we ended up talking so much about microscope.

I love this. I love this. So I expect that there would be lots of beautiful images, lots of microscope talk, lots of, um, cups, mugs, um, for which people have to watch the YouTube video or, uh, come on the Twitter account when you’re tweeting. So do you want to show your cup, the cup, the cup that you have? Oh, my cup.

Sorry. This is my marble cup that, um, it’s horn gets like the direction of the twist gets dictated by actin and microtubules. The [00:20:00] proteins that I will be talking a lot about when I’m taking over the Twitter. And speaking of which, what can the followers expect in the week that you are taking over the Real Scientist Nano Twitter account?

So, um, I’m going to start with an intro, just a little bit about me and the lab and how I got here. So those of you that have heard this, Spoiler alert, you know, you know some of it. Um, then I’m going to tell you about some of the open questions in the field that we find really interesting by no means. I mean, I would love to say we’re going to solve all of them, but just to give you a flavor of like, what I think is really cool questions that maybe we can help to answer.

Um, then what we’re doing to try to address some of those questions, um, and that involves some pretty cool microscopes and pictures

And then we’re going to wrap it up with like the questions that we hope like what [00:21:00] questions that we didn’t solve. But, you know, as you guys know, like a lot of times when you do research, you end up with more questions or different questions than you started with. So we’ll talk a little bit about those.

Okay. Wow. So that’s, that’s, that’s quite an action packed week. Great to have you on Real Scientist Nano. This has been lovely, Jessica. Thank you very much for speaking with me. No problem. Thank you for inviting me.

Thank you for listening. This is Pranati, host of Under the Microscope. To know more about us, visit our website, thescientstalk. com, and follow us on Twitter at real sci underscore nano.

July 11-17 2022

Podcast title: Everyday is a Bones Day

Jessica is an Assistant Professor at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

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