This Nerd Nite presentation guides you through a blueprint of the nucleus. Understanding how the nucleus is organised is like trying to read a map in a different language. We can see there are roads, dead ends and possibilities of a sneaky shortcut, but we don’t fully grasp what we are seeing. To understand where to go and how to get there, we need to understand the language of the nucleus. For the most part, the nucleus is the site where our DNA is constantly being packed and unpacked, modified, duplicated and regulated to keep our cells functional. Trying to visualise what the nucleus really looks like remains a bit of a mystery. It turns out that DNA is not just stuffed randomly in the nucleus, but rather it is beautifully ordered and we have the incredible images to prove it. Alison will discuss what we know, what we think we know, and what remains a mystery.

Alison Morey is fresh PhD candidate only a year in at Monash University working in molecular immunology. In her undergrad the topic of epigenetics (DNA modification) completely captured her fancy and now she spends her time trying to piece together the impact epigenetics play in the immune response.