A tribute to Portuguese researcher Miguel Mota
Anyone that took biology classes in high school (or at any other stage of their education) had to have come across cell division and many fancy words like mitosis, meiosis, eukaryote, anaphase, metaphase, chromosome, kinetochores, centromeres, etc.
Well, today something caught my attention regarding two of these terms, namely anaphase and kinetochores. It seems that way back in 1956, a Portuguese researcher by the name of Miguel Mota made a visionary connection between them and published it in “A new hypothesis for the anaphase movement“.
Miguel Mota conceptualized that chromosome movement during anaphase is due to an active role played by kinetochores, minute protein bodies located at the centromeric region where spindle microtubules attach, which he envisioned to act also as “engines” that move chromosomes to the poles.
Mota’s models were only proven supported by more experimental data in 1987 (30 years later!) by Gorbsky and colleagues.
As a tribute to 83 86 year old Miguel Mota’s prescient findings, a symposium entitled: Mechanisms of Chromosome Segregation will take place in Porto, Portugal on the 9th and 10th of March 2009.
There is an impressive list of invited speakers to this tribute event with Gorbsky himself among the list.
I just love learning about this type of stuff. I had no idea that there was this impressive Portuguese researcher named Miguel Mota until today. I wish emphasis was given in school on teaching more about the who’s and the how’s and not only the what’s. Make sense?
Related posts:
- Portuguese government wants DNA Database
- Quote of the day by Joe Cibelli (Michigan State University)
- Portuguese Minister Mariano Gago on Open Access
- Bad Portuguese genes, bad!
- Portuguese DNA database gets green light
On FriendFeed, this post was liked by 0 people and commented on 0 times show
I want to say that my theory of anaphase did not need to wait 30 years to be proved as it was presented in an International Genetics Symposium, in Japan, in 1956, with experimental data to support it. It was published in 1957. Gorbsky and colleagues’ paper just added more experimental data to those given in the presentation and publication. I repeated those original data in the opening lecture of the Symposium.
Incidentally, I am 86 years old, not 83.
First of all, let me say that it is an honor to have you commenting my blog. :)
Thank you for correcting my post. My information was based on a couple of articles I read in local (Portuguese) newspapers and the website I linked to.