Joshua ElkingtonFounder and General Partner at Axial

Stuart Schrieber on hydrogels

Name: Stuart Schrieber on hydrogels
Uploaded: 2024-05-02T21:02:53+00:00
Duration: 59 s
Channel: Joshua Elkington
Description: Stuart Schrieber explains how hydrogels concentrate molecules inside cells, similar to lipid rafts. When super-enhancers form hydrogels, they…

2 May 2024 · 1 min

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Stuart Schrieber explains how hydrogels concentrate molecules inside cells, similar to lipid rafts. When super-enhancers form hydrogels, they dramatically increase the effective molarity of associated components, amplifying biochemical reactions and adding a new layer to how cells organize themselves.

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In some respects, what is a lipid raft if not some kind of little phase-separated thing in the membrane? So I agree. I think that there's a— we're all learning these amazing— what'd you call them, hydrogels? Yeah. They're everywhere. And they've been— and by the way, how amazing is that?— how many decades of cell biology work. And in fact, people had found them, little bodies here and there, and now it's like they're everywhere and they're really important. They're another form of concentration. They're a mechanism to make— create high effective molarity. When a super-enhancer forms by creating a hydrogel or phase separating, it's creating high effective molarity of the relevant pieces. And, you know, So that's another layer in terms of the general proximity effect. I think these are going to be profoundly important.