Usually, when we think about biotechnology, it’s in the context of agriculture, and occasionally in the context of medicine, but biotechnology is useful for a lot more. It can be used to study complex cellular and developmental processes with results that can be stunningly beautiful, and sometimes silly.

Margaret Clarke researches the soil amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum using biotechnology. Dr. Clarke is officially retired, but as a dedicated scientist, she’s continuing her work. She visited Iowa State yesterday and today.

In particular, Dr. Clarke studies phagocytosis – literally “cell eating”. These amoeba are single celled organisms that eat bacteria (and just about any bacteria-sized particle that might be nutritious). Phagocytosis is the process of forming a cup that engulfs the prey, drawing the prey into the phagocyte, and digesting the prey.

Her work has important applications in human medicine, as the phagocytosis process takes place in special phagocytic cells that are part of the immune system of humans and other animals. Learning how phagocytosis works in amoeba can help us to understand how it works in the immune system.

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