Paul Jarman submitted the actin cytoskeleton image to the Chemistry in Pictures feature run by Chemical and Engineering News, who made it their image of the month for November 2017.
The image was captured as part of Paul's investigation's into how small molecules interact with the actin cytoskeleton, a network of protein fibers inside cells that helps them grow and serves as tracks to transport cargo.
Paul transfected cells with a fluorescent peptide that was able to specifically bind to the actin filaments, and with Dr Darren Robinson at the Wolfson Light Microscopy Facility, collected images of the cells at different depths using a laser scanning microscope.
He then artificially colored the actin cytoskeleton in each image: the bottom slices are shown in blue, the middle slices in yellow, and the top slices in red.
This research builds on work that Paul began here in Chemistry, as a PhD student and postdoctoral research associate working with Professor Jim Thomas.
Paul is now an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Research Fellow working with Professor Carl Smythe in the Department of Biomedical Science, but first came to the University of Sheffield as an undergraduate on our MChem Chemistry with Study in America course.