{"id":692,"date":"2019-07-23T05:05:26","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T05:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/?p=692"},"modified":"2019-07-23T05:10:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T05:10:19","slug":"video-series-on-model-organisms-axolotl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/2019\/07\/23\/video-series-on-model-organisms-axolotl\/","title":{"rendered":"Video series on model organisms: Axolotl"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>This is the first in a series of posts\/videos about \u201cmodel organisms.\u201d The videos will be available here as well as on my Instagram account<\/a>.\n<\/iframe><\/span>\nResearchers, like most people, have limited time and space. Thus, when setting up experiments, they often try to do so in the most efficient, practical and informative ways possible. This leads many scientists to work with so-called \u201cmodel organisms.\u201d Model organisms are living things that are particularly easy to work with in the lab. They often grow quickly, are small, and are easy to care for.<\/p>\nScientists use different model organisms to study different processes. They do so in the hopes that what they learn from these models will be applicable to other living things. This doesn\u2019t always turn out to be true, but, with the right model organisms, scientists can learn a lot.<\/p>\nAs you can see below, I\u2019ll be drawing top hats on all my depictions of model organisms. The top hats symbolize that, in many ways, model organisms are going out of style. This is because new biotech\u00a0tools (eg. <a href=\"https:\/\/innovativegenomics.org\/resources\/educational-materials\/glossary\/crispr\/\">CRISPR<\/a>) make it easier to work with all sorts of organisms. Model organisms just aren\u2019t as necessary as they used to be. Nonetheless, we have learned a lot from these models and we\u2019re sure to learn a lot more from them in the future.<\/p>\n<h2>Axolotl: A great model organism for regenerative biology, stem cell, and developmental research<\/h2>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-693\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=525%2C525&ssl=1\" alt=\"Axolotl Post\" width=\"525\" height=\"525\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?w=4520&ssl=1 4520w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=300%2C300&ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=768%2C768&ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=1024%2C1024&ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?resize=100%2C100&ssl=1 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?w=1575 1575w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/p>\nOur first model organism (pictured here) is type of salamander known as an axolotl.<\/p>\nAxolotl are particularly useful to biologists studying stem cells and <a href=\"http:\/\/sitn.hms.harvard.edu\/flash\/2018\/regeneration-axolotl-can-teach-us-regrowing-human-limbs\/\">regeneration<\/a>. This is because they\u2019re crazzzzy good at regrowing their body parts. In fact, you can cut off a whole axolotl limb and it will grow back!<\/p>\nThis amazing ability also makes axolotl great tools for studying developmental biology. This field focuses on the processes by which animals form complex tissues, organs, and whole bodies.<\/p>\nFor example, by monitoring axolotl as they regrow body parts, we learn how their cells coordinate with one another. Cells may use similar coordination mechanisms during human development. Thus working with axolotl can provide insights into our own biology!<\/p>\nThat\u2019s it for now, more model organism posts to come!<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the first in a series of posts\/videos about \u201cmodel organisms.\u201d The videos will be available here as well as on my Instagram account. Researchers, like most people, have limited time and space. Thus, when setting up experiments, they often try to do so in the most efficient, practical and informative ways possible. This … <\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/2019\/07\/23\/video-series-on-model-organisms-axolotl\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading “Video series on model organisms: Axolotl”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,6],"tags":[40,39,17],"class_list":["post-692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-science-communication","tag-developmental-biology","tag-model-organisms","tag-stem-cells"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tylerjford.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Axolotl-Post.png?fit=4520%2C4520&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pap2RX-ba","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tylerjford.com\/landing.html\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}