Featured image with Victoria Alonso
Posted by FocalPlane, on 13 October 2023
Our featured image is a Trypanosoma cruzi epimastigote, prepared for expansion confocal microscopy with pan-proteome staining with NHS-ester Atto564 by Victoria Alonso. The image is a z-stack acquired with a Zeiss LSM 880 and was edited with ImageJ Fiji, plugin: Z-stack depth Colorcode.
We caught up with Victoria to find out more about her research and what she is excited about in microscopy.
Research career so far: For my entire career, I’ve been studying different aspects of Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, which is endemic in Latin America. I did my PhD at the University of Rosario (UNR), Argentina studying bromodomain-containing proteins in T. cruzi. Then, I did a postdoc in medicinal chemistry finding anti-trypanocidal drugs from modified natural extracts. Currently, I am an assistant professor in the Parasitology department at FBioyF (UNR) and an Assistant Researcher at the Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario (IBR-CONICET), where I am starting my own line of work.
Current research: I am studying the function of acetylation on alpha-tubulin (one of the building blocks of microtubules) and how it impacts on the replication and differentiation of T. cruzi during its life cycle. T. cruzi has a unique pattern of tubulin acetylation and makes a great organism to study these processes. I am interested in characterising the enzymes involved in modifying tubulin and their potential as new drug targets against Chagas disease.
Favourite imaging technique/microscope: I’ve done a lot of confocal in combination with expansion microscopy. Now, I am starting to explore different labelling techniques and super-resolution microscopy.
What are you most excited about in microscopy? I am blown away by expansion microscopy, especially the possibility of combining it with super-resolution microscopy to obtain nanometer resolutions of subcellular structures. I think that the applicability to protozoan pathogens will revolutionize the field.
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