Biochemistry Image of the Month: June

Biochemistry Image of the Month: June 

 

nick gatford

To celebrate 100 years of research excellence, the University of Oxford’s Biochemistry Department held a Centenary Scientific Imaging Competition earlier this year.

The medical science division’s students, researchers and staff entered the contest, which concluded in March 2023, creating a vast gallery of scientific images. Each month, we’re featuring one of them as our Image of the Month.

This month, we’ve chosen an image by Nick Gatford, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurology, showing a culture of human dopaminergic neurons. 

Generated from human stem cells, these neurons deteriorate in Parkinson’s disease, partly because of toxic build up of a protein called alpha-synuclein, which causes degeneration. 

The cells can be used to gain insight into how we can develop new drugs that target alpha synuclein interaction pathways to slow or even stop their degeneration. 

The aim is to develop, test and validate new treatments for Parkinson’s disease in human patients.