European Researchers’ Night, Old Market, Bratislava, September 26, 2014


Live cardiac Cells – Scientific booth

“How do the cells in our body function?” is the question asked by physicians, engineers, philosophers, artists and informaticians. Surely, the cell is the bearer of life! “Only experiments can provide the answers” is what we scientists reply. How to do it? First, we have to separate the cells form the organism in such a way that they stay alive. Why? To determine the rules that govern their tireless work without the influence of the complex environment. The experiments are then much simpler and the answer much more precise. The results provide a lot of information about our health as well as about our diseases.

In this booth we have shown how we isolate live cells from the cardiac muscle and what experiments we perfrom with them. We have provided the device that we have constructed to this purpose. We have described the procedure, explained the whys, whats and hows. The visitors could observer perfusion of a prepared heart of the laboratory rat on the Langendorff apparatus, look at isolated cardiac myocytes in the microsope, view images of myocyte structure as we see it in the confocal and electron microscope, and follow the course of the experiment on a computer display. The presentation was animated by artistic photographs made from electron-microscopic images.

Presenters: Matej Hoťka, Gizela Gajdošíková, Zuzana Nichtová, Marta Novotová, Alexandra Zahradníková, jr., Alexandra Zahradníková, Ivan Zahradník.

Links: Slovak Academy of Sciences (in Slovak)
Snapshots:

Zuzana Nichtová v akcii Marta Novotová vysvetľuje
Ivan a Sandra Zahradníkovci v diskusii Zuzka v dave
Ivan Zahradník a študentka gymnázia nie len deti zaujíma naša práca
Marta v akcii Gizka Gajdošíková predstavuje svoje živobytie
ak chcete pečiatku, pozrite sa sem chlapec a Gizka
matka a dcéra Matej Hoťka vysvetľuje
Alexandra Zahradníková s Evou Kutejovou