02 November 2014

Biology Meets Geometry

Architecture imitates life, at least when it comes to those spiral ramps in multistory parking garages. Stacked and connecting parallel levels, the ramps are replications of helical structures found in a ubiquitous membrane structure in the cells of the body.  A network of membranes found throughout the cell and connected to and surrounding the cell nucleus is called the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). A trio of scientists managed to describe ER geometry using the language of theoretical physics.

Their work hypothesizes how the particular shape of this organelle forms, based on the interactions between ramps. The rough ER consists of a number of more or less regular stacks of evenly spaced connected sheets, a structure that reflects its function as the shop floor of protein synthesis within a cell. Until recently, scientists assumed that the connections between adjacent sheets were like wormholes—that is, simple tubes.

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