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 212 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
A Stripy Hand to Get the Flow
  Ms. Samatha Mathew*
Email: samatha.mathew@igib.in
EThe model
ver put a sea-shell against your ears and heard the sound of waves? Well, that sound is of the ‘flow’, that is, of your
blood flow. The network of vessels that carry blood across the body have to be healthy at all times to maintain this flow. However, there are conditions where blood vessels malfunction and can manifest as hemorrhages, and even cause strokes, or cause cardiovascular diseases. Needless to say, understanding the mechanism of how blood vessels function will allow improvement in treatment of a wide range of diseases.
Biological scientist stereotypes in popular media portray, most often than not, lab-coat adorning people with frowning faces, peering into a microscope or looking at mice in cages.
While these portrayals are near accurate, some biologists prefer striped friends over pearly white mice. Stripped zebrafish are tiny fish that grow to a maximum of 2-3cm and give rise to about a hundred offspring between a single pair of male and female, every week! Baby zebrafish are transparent, and develop organs such as heart and brain within a day.
  * Ms. Samatha Mathew, PhD Scholar from CSIR- Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, is pursuing her research on “Long non Coding RNA Mediated Regulation of Blood Vessel Integrity in Zebrafish”. Her popular science story entitled “A Stripy Hand to Get the Flow” has been selected for AWSAR Award.

























































































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