My 15 minutes of fame

Yesterday I had my 15 min. of fame, literally. One of my mouse aorta rings (my research is about contractile responses of mice artery) did not relax to ACh (what was perfectly fine, because I blocked NO-production, but I did not know that back then…). However, because the organ chambers here are really crappy and prone to failure, I checked the chamber and the right fit of the aorta using a portable microscope and a cold-light-lamp. While doing so, the aorta relaxed, and after I finished, contracted again! It seemed to be related with the light, so I switched it on again, and viola, it relaxed again and stayed relaxed as long as I kept the light on. I showed my new trick to Dr. Ohashi to ask for an explanation, but she had none. After 5 min. half of the laboratory staff surrounded my organ chambers and debated possible explanations and even tested the effect with a quickly organized UV-light (the effect was even stronger with pure UV-light). Dr. Ohashi suggested the repetition of the experiment, and, if successful, the presentation of my results to the professor. I could smell the freshly printed pages of an article with my name on it (at least somewhere at the end of the author list). Highly motivated, I started a literature search and… the phenomenon of “Photosensitivity of mouse aorta” is known since 1955!



So kids, next time you are working with a precontracted mouse (or rat) aorta, just show your friends how you relax it by simply illuminating it with a flashlight. Your nerd-friends will high-5 and worship you forever!

And let’s not forget, another beautiful Igor-photo of Dr. Ohashi and me :)