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Vivid Biology is on sabbatical until 2028
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Vivid Biology is on pause from 2025 to 2028. This is because Claudia is living in Madrid, Spain.

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The Anne McLaren Lecture: Reprogramming and cellular dominance
The Anne McLaren Lecture: Reprogramming and cellular dominance
The Anne McLaren Lecture: Reprogramming and cellular dominance
2013
Amanda Fisher

Summary of the science

Organisms require cells with different functions in order to survive and be healthy. Stem cells are special cells that have the ability of becoming any type of cell and once they become that cell, they usually remain that way - unless they become reprogrammed. Reprogramming refers to the ability of cells to change their specialised functions - It's like giving a cell a new job. Some stem cells have the ability of transforming other specialised cells back into a neutral state, where they are now able to take on a new function. Imagine the neutral state as them being unemployed. In this case, cellular dominance refers to the stem cell's heightened (dominant) ability to transform specific types of cells over other types.

About the research

Amanda Fischer's research focuses on understanding how cells become specialised and how their cellular identity changes during differentiation and cell division. She also studies the effect of environmental exposures during embryogenesis can impact the developing epigenome and thus influence the overall health of the offspring as well as the generations to come. She also looks at how cellular (re)programming is regulated through gene expression and the role of transcription factors and epigenetic regulators in this process.

About the illustration

We wanted to emphasise the idea of reprogramming; that any one cell can turn into another cell with a different function. One cell for example (in white), as we have shown in our illustration, has the ability of becoming or switching to any type of white blood cell (cells at 50% opacity). We presented all the cells in a hexagonal grid, so it is easy to see the quantity of each type. This is important, as the title also refers to cellular dominance, which is the idea that some cell types and formed more frequently than others (ie are more dominant).