u/paigejarreau

Caterra is studying type 1 diabetes with the hope of one day providing a permanent treatment for this disease. In particular, she is creating stem-cell-derived insulin-producing beta cells and working to ensure that, once those cells are implanted into a patient's pancreas, they can evade future immune attacks and continue producing insulin for the body! Learn more about type 1 diabetes and insulin-producing beta cells in the lab with Caterra.

Bella Smith designs magnetic nanoparticles for biomedical imaging applications such as MRI. But her gateway to materials science was actually... horseshoes! Her horse Rebel has had hoof issues for many years, prompting Bella to learn more about horseshoes made out of innovative materials, including plastics and composites.

with Zee PhD, an immunologist at University of Georgia!

For Zee, turning the body's own immune system into a more efficient killer of cancer cells isn't science fiction; it's what she works on daily! Zainab Hakeem is a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department at the University of Georgia. She is working with the immune cells with the most bad-a** name—Natural Killer cells—to help them kill cancer cells more efficiently by binding tightly to antibodies that, in turn, find and latch onto specific molecules on the surface of cancer cells. Zee uses biochemistry, tuning molecular receptors and proteins to control their interactions, to help the immune system in its fight against cancer. Learn more with Zee in this podcast from her work in the lab!

Nuri Smith is a researcher working to better understand ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease)... by growing tiny spinal cords in a dish! By studying balls of neurons, motor neurons, and muscle cells, Nuri is learning more about how ALS progresses and produces symptoms -- and eventually how we might treat this disease in a targeted way. Listen to Nuri talk about organoids, her experiences in the lab, her commitment to communicating brain science, and more in this podcast!

Jane Waters leads the ant lab at Providence College. Her lab studies ants and other insects, exploring their natural history, collective behavior, and metabolic physiology. It turns out that ants can teach us a lot about broader rules of social interaction, the energy use of growing organisms (or even cities!), and even the human brain! Learn more about ants and get a glipse at some fascinating ant species and ant behavior in this Facetime with Scientists podcast episode.

(No spoilers! Just a few mobs.)

A podcast episode with mechanical engineer Emma McCarthy at LSU on making materials for extreme conditions!

Imagine smelling a dead rat 🐀, seeing flesh flies snacking on and laying eggs in its corpse, and deciding, I need to make art out of this. That is exactly what Manuela Guzman, an illustrator who made her MFA thesis all about helping people engage with insects via art, did. You'll want to catch this whole story! It's somehow both gross and beautiful and heartwarming.

In this podcast, Manuela Guzman shows many of the drawings and books she created on insects for her MFA thesis.