Ileana Márquez: The Cell That Carries Half the Genetic Code of a Potential Human Life
Ileana Márquez, Postdoctoral Researcher at Syracuse University, shared on LinkedIn:
“This image stunned me.
It’s a human oocyte, a human egg! The cell that carries half the genetic code of a potential human life, taken at CNY Fertility using polarized light microscopy.
The colors are beautiful, but they aren’t just decoration. They represent the orientation of the meiotic spindle: that microscopic structure (inside, 5 o’clock) responsible for pulling chromosomes apart during cell division.
When this process goes wrong, the result is aneuploidy: an incorrect distribution of the chromosomes, the leading cause of IVF failure and miscarriage.
Polarized light microscopy has been around for decades. Shinya Inoué showed us its power for spindle imaging long ago. But quantifying human oocyte spindles with it? That’s still new territory. And that’s where I come in.
But getting to this image took two years: establishing a new lab from scratch, a steep learning curve, a lot of failed experiments, extraordinary mentors, and a collaboration I’m incredibly grateful for.
Over the next few months, I’m going to share that story – the many pieces that had to come together before this image was even possible!
The science, the setbacks, the people, and what it actually looks like to build a research program from scratch in a field that is still being defined.
Because research almost never looks like a straight line. And I think that’s worth showing.
‘Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.’
– Albert Szent-Györgyi (namesake of the scholarship that sent me to MBL!)
- Kelleher Lab, Syracuse University and CNY Fertility
- Polarized light microscopy, Oosight system
- In collaboration with Olivia Pavlik.”
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