Tag Archives: Dicty World Race

Dicty World Race Course 2014

The 2014 Dicty Race Course (shown below with no cells in it) was collaboratively designed by a team at Daniel Irimia’s lab. Some clever lad even thought it would be funny to put a Pacman in there. Good call!

2014 Dicty Race Course

At the end of the race course is a straightaway that is 200 microns in length. This straightaway is used to measure speed. Since the microscope only takes an image every 5 minutes, the straightaway allows for Daniel’s lab to tell exactly how many microns the cell moved during the 5 min between that photo and the previous one. Speed is not measured while a cell is in the course because the cell might have taken a number of turns since the last image was taken. 

First shot of Dicty cell lines on the move

To start the race, the cells are dropped into the middle of the maze (circle in upper left) and they begin to migrate outward into the maze on the right. Can you tell what the shortest path is?!

Tweet @scicasters and let us know what you think!

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Prepped and Loaded - Cells Loaded into the Maze

The cells have been loaded into the maze. The final preparations for the official start are wrapping up… We’re getting so close to seeing what these cells can really do!

Loading HL60 cell lines into maze

Loading HL60 cell lines into maze

HL60 cells under the microscope

The microscope is motorized so it cycles through the spots on the slide every 5 minutes and takes a picture. The pictures are strung together to make the final “movie” of the race

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Investigative Report: Foul Play at Luxembourg?

As we all know from an earlier blog post, the Tschirhart Lab from the University of Luxembourg’s cells were DOA. We can’t help but wonder why this might have been the case. Could there have been some foul play from our other competitors? Potsdam perhaps? Stay tuned to see if we can find out! 

Be sure to follow our live coverage on our Dicty World Race page: https://scicast.org/dicty for the race and follow us on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/scicasters

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Dicty World Race(s) 2014?!

Currently we are getting word that there will be two different start times for the Dicty World Race, or race(s), in our case. The HL60s will be starting shortly, while the Dictys will start a short time after that.

Any thoughts on the reason for the change? How do you think this will change the race outcome? Let us know at our Dicty World Race page: https://scicast.org/dicty and for more updates follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scicasters

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A Neutrophil’s Point of View

So what does a neutrophil see? The image depicts the Dicty racecourse from the perspective of a hungry neutrophil. The green represents the chemoattractant used to lure cells to the finish line. The cells enter from the bottom, where the signal is the weakest, and move up to the strongest area of attractant.

Race Course - Neutrophil Perspective

 

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