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I am trying to figure out how our cells pack the DNA they need into their tiny nucleus. Somehow the cell takes 3 meters of DNA and shoves it into a nucleus that is only .000003 of a meter! Ever see someone try to fit way too many things into a suitcase, well, the cell must be very good at packing!

To figure out what makes cells such good packers I want to create a machine that will paint DNA. When this machine is put into a cell it will paint only the part of the DNA right near it. I can then look through a microscope and see what part of the DNA is painted. Doing this many times will let me create a map of the DNA by looking at where the machine painted. Lucky for me, bacteria cells have a machine that can already paint DNA! This machine, or what we call a protein, acts as a DNA paintbrush. I have taken this paintbrush from bacteria and have put it into human cells (luckily no longer in a human!) and am now making the map of the DNA.

The human cells I work with are very demanding. Every day I have to feed them and wash them. Luckily they are very small, so I can have many of them growing in a tea cup sized flask. Also, in my opinion, they do not have very good taste. Instead of demanding sticky toffee pudding or chips, as I might, they do best when fed all their food in a liquid form. So just have to pour some food on them everyday.

Some of my day is spent looking at cells in a microscope. I am looking to see if my DNA paint has worked and then I am taking pictures of them to make a map. This map will help me understand how all that DNA is packed into such a tiny nucleus.