Mastodawn

Katrina Velle Oct 30, 2024

For night 30 of #31NightsofHalloween #MicrosCreepy, here are some amoebae squished under a jello-like pad. The flashes you see are contractile vacuole pumping events-- this organelle colllects and expels water (like bailing water out of a boat!)

Katrina Velle Oct 28, 2024

For night 28 of #31NightsOfHalloween #MicrosCreepy,
IT'S ALIVE! These are reanimated cell "ghosts," which are cells that have had their membranes/cytoplasm washed away, leaving the cytoskeleton behind. Adding ATP activates myosin motors, which causes contraction!

Katrina Velle Sep 3, 2024

Happy #MicroscopyMonday!
Here is a kymograph of a cell crawling into a microchannel. Each horizontal row of pixels represents a line drawn from outside (green) through a channel (purple) at 5 second timepoints. ~1/2 way down (20 min) a cell fully enters the channel and takes off!

Katrina Velle Aug 19, 2024

Happy #MicroscopyMonday! Here are somme amoebae crawling into channels

LUT: JDM_Phase Ink Mint-Cherry

Katrina Velle Jan 29, 2024

Happy #MicroscopyMonday!

Katrina Velle Dec 11, 2023

Happy #MicroscopyMonday, from an amoeba crawling in a very narrow channel!

Katrina Velle Nov 15, 2023

I am actively recruiting students for my lab at UMass Dartmouth!

Are you interested in a project on actin, amoebae, cell migration, and/or pathogenesis? Send me an email & apply to the Integrative Biology PhD program by Jan 15!

Please RT
More info: https://katrinavelle.wixsite.com/science

Home | Katrina B Velle, PhD

I'm Katrina Velle, a cell biologist interested in actin-driven phenotypes and microbial pathogenesis. As a postdoc, I am investigating the contributions of the actin cytoskeleton to phenotypes in Naegleria gruberi—a non-pathogenic model system for the "brain-eating amoeba."

Katrina Velle

Katrina Velle Nov 1, 2023

Katrina Velle Oct 29, 2023

28/ #31NightsOfHalloween #MicrosCreepy A flagellate cell stained for microtubules

Katrina Velle Oct 24, 2023

23/ #31nightsofhalloween #microscreepy
Here is some actin cytoskeleton staining of cells crawling into microchannels.