2004 Volume No 8 - pages 27-36
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Title: Small is beautiful but smaller is the aim: Review
of a life of research |
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Authors: A. S. G. Curtis |
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Address: Centre for Cell Engineering, University
of Glasgow, Scotland |
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E-mail: A.Curtis at bio.gla.ac.uk |
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Key Words: Adam Curtis, Glasgow, cell adhesion,
microfabrication, nanofabrication, nanotopography, neuronal
networks, tendon. |
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Publication date: October 22nd 2004 |
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Abstract: Background and origins of research of
Adam Curtis. One persisting theme has been the pursuit of
different landscapes at different scales to discover the routes
to explain how the body is built. His research life fell in
a fortunate period during which techniques and concepts for
investigating structure have improved year by year. His most
fortunate encounter was with Michael Abercrombie and his views
on the social behaviour of cells, aims for quantitation, and
statistical testing. Adam worked in various environments –
in turn Geology as an undergraduate, Biophysics Ph.D. in a
Genetics department and various departments in turn from anatomy
via zoology to Cell Biology. Adam started his Ph.D. work in
cell adhesion, studying cell movement, trapping and reaggregation
phenomena, having an early start from the physico-chemical
viewpoint. He made quantitative measurements of cell adhesion
by kinetic methods. Interference reflection microscopy (IRM)
and related optical interference techniques were brought into the field of biology by him. In turn this led with Chris Wilkinson,
a long term colleague, to the use of micro- and nanofabrication
for biological research. Polscope and photoelastic measurements
were introduced to biology recently in his laboratory. One
long term theme has been to map the adhesion of cells to substrates
to discover contact areas. Early data came from IRM and then
TIRF (Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy) and
then from Forster Resonance Energy Microscopy (FRET). Another important
theme was the time scale that needed to be measured –
very short indeed in suspension. This was very difficult and
has only become possible very recently but hydrodynamic calculation
shows it must be very short. The attractions of the Derjagin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek
theory (DLVO theory) are that they explain many features of
biological adhesion. The main test of this theory depends
upon the energy of the adhesion at various different separation
distances between cell and cell or cell and substrate. Problems
with cell adhesion molecules are discussed. Contact guidance
of cells by oriented structures and Paul Weiss – Tests
with grating replicas suggested that topographic rather than
biochemical explanations were applicable. It became clearer
later that this was an area of research waiting for microfabrication.
Albert Harris influenced me considerably to start thinking
about mechanical forces produced by cells. Pulling at cells
showed effects on the cytoskeleton and on cell cycle time.
Such thoughts led to a microfabricated device for tendon repair.
Recent photoelastic measurements with the Polscope have allowed
much more detailed analysis of the forces between cells. The
interesting results on microfabricated devices led to work
on nanostructures. Results led the Glasgow group to consider
dimensions of structures and how cells could sense such small
objects and questions about why order and size may be important.
Differential protein adsorption onto surfaces seems to provide
defective explanations of the effects. The results will be
discussed in terms of very recent theories of cell interaction
and cell signals and possible future developments will be
outlined. |
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Article download: Pages
27-36. (PDF file) |
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