![]() ![]() Based on a multi-faceted analysis of this motor from numerous laboratories over the years, we have learned a great deal about the function of this motor at the atomic level for catalysis and as an integrated element of the cytoskeleton. Comprised of a homotetramer complex, its function primarily is to slide anti-parallel microtubules apart from one another. Perhaps the simplest player in mitotic spindle assembly, Kinesin-5 (also known as Kif11, Eg5, or kinesin spindle protein, KSP) is a plus-end-directed motor localized to interpolar spindle microtubules and to the spindle poles. ![]() The mitotic kinesins, by virtue of their potential therapeutic role in cancerous cells, have been a major focus of research for the past 28 years since the discovery of the canonical Kinesin-1 heavy chain. They’re collaborating with D’Asaro’s younger sister, a local food entrepreneur, to modify the machine to dispense soft-serve with what D’Asaro calls a “special surprise.” Although they aren’t ready to say more about it, they’re convinced the result will be worth the hours spent tinkering in their dorm-room workshop.Kinesin motor proteins comprise an ATPase superfamily that goes hand in hand with microtubules in every eukaryote. He hopes to get a job on the West Coast working with analog electronics, and Chilenski wants to end up at a national laboratory.īut the two have at least one more project to finish before they go-the ice cream maker sitting on their kitchen floor. “This is just about the peak and just about the end,” D’Asaro says. And although D’Asaro probably won’t graduate until 2016, he too will have to leave by year’s end, since Sidney-Pacific is scheduled for renovations. Chilenski is on track to finish his dissertation in 2015. D’Asaro snagged it after bounding up five flights of stairs to get there ahead of anyone riding the elevator. After more than a year of tinkering, however, they did manage to resuscitate an old 3-D printer that they heard was up for grabs outside a lab at MIT. The roommates are both busy with dissertation research, so they don’t have time to collaborate on many extracurricular projects. #Philco poser tool box how to#Chilenski, who is working on a PhD in nuclear engineering, teaches prospective undergraduates in the field how to build the devices as a way to recruit them to the program. On his shelves, he has a Cold War–era Geiger counter as well as a collection of counters that he designed and built himself, the most recent of which D’Asaro collaborated on. Fortunately, the shellac he uses is dissolved in alcohol, so it “doesn’t smell any worse than a bad night at the bar.” Petroleum-based drying chemicals would speed up the process, he says, but they would also stink up the suite. It’s a months-long process that requires a lot of waiting for parts to dry, he says, gesturing to the roughly one-foot-wide drum that’s been sitting on his desk for weeks. A percussionist in the MIT Wind Ensemble, he has been refurbishing and building his own drums since high school. “It’s MIT, so old equipment sort of falls down like rain around here if you know who to ask,” he says with a chuckle.Ĭhilenski’s room, by comparison, is relatively uncluttered. He also has piles of outdated lab tools that had been destined for the dumpster. D’Asaro’s vast collection of vintage electronics includes three kinds of vacuum-tube testers, several transistor radios and 1940s TVs, and a World War II PA speaker. He even has prototypes of one of the world’s first integrated circuits, which he says his late grandfather, a former physicist at Bell Telephone Laboratories and a major influence in D’Asaro’s life, designed himself. #Philco poser tool box manual#Scattered all around are his old-school treasures-a 1946 Philco radio/phonograph, vintage manual cameras, a 1940s telephone that connects to his smartphone through a “slightly modified converter box,” a personal computer from the 1970s, a working TV from 1949. He has spools of wire hanging on the wall to his left and a workbench cluttered with test equipment lining the wall to his right. ![]() Standing in the middle of his bedroom-a kind of time capsule of electrical engineering-D’Asaro smiles and cracks jokes as he tells stories from his childhood. “By studying the entire spectrum of electronics from the inception to the present, you know the field with a far greater depth and perspective than someone who’s only aware of how things are done now,” he says. ![]()
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