Dr. Diego Bohórquez

Like you just do your thing so we can keep communicating, right?

Except maybe don't eat more of that lettuce, right?

Here is where the tools started to make a big difference.

You know, all of a sudden you could see...

the resolution of a receptor inside of a cell using certain type of microscopes, right?

So I remember that one of the first questions that I will always get drill on, you know how these laugh meetings can get intense, right?

Like when I would bring data and showing just very simple immunohistochemistry, meaning labeling to see how the cells were interacting with the nervous system.

And I will show some of the images

Then the other scientists will say, well, you know, yeah, those are nice images.

But remember that contact does not mean connection.

And I went thinking about that.

Like at the very beginning, I thought that it was silly semantics, you know.

But I specifically remember that there was one time I was running and I was thinking, like, how do you demonstrate connection between two cells?

And then I thought that since we had the ability to identify these cells by fluorescence, we could isolate them based on their fluorescence.

And what will happen if we put them in front of a sensory neuron and then just record them inside of a microscope, right, over time?

I thought maybe they will get close to each other and then we can go and do some more labeling and show that they are contacting or connecting.

But much to our surprise, we actually saw that in real time, when you isolate them from the mouse and you put them in a dish, they both look like these round circles.

But after a few hours, not only they get close to each other, but they recapitulate the circuitry in the dish.

Literally, they form like two brains in a dish, right?

Like it's the gut and the brain in a dish.