“Cells are like a hustling and bustling city: one that appears to be complete chaos from the outside, but there’s an organization to it. In healthy cells, the right genes are active at the right time, and transcription factors play an essential role by switching these genes on or off. You can compare this process to postal workers delivering packages to people’s homes with a track-and-trace system.
Instead of such a system, I tracked this process under an advanced microscope which allowed me to stand guard at a particular house, a gene, and wait until the delivery person arrived with the package, the transcription factor. It’s fascinating to witness. I didn’t need to wait very long, since they usually complete a delivery within just a few minutes. You can imagine that it’s never a good thing when a package fails to arrive or ends up at the wrong address: this can lead to diseases like cancer.
I have now studied one type of package, but there are many more. I want to unravel additional delivery systems as a postdoctoral researcher here at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. The cover of my thesis includes a reference to my hobby, jazz music, which shows the same organized chaos you see inside a cell.”
Jos Meeussen will defend his thesis on December 4.
Research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute is financially supported by KWF Dutch Cancer Society and the AVL Foundation.
prof. dr. F. van Leeuwen
dr. T.L. Lenstra