A Splash of Cell Division

One morning last summer, biochemistry graduate student Ben Engel looked out of his apartment complex window at an amorphous, double-blob-shaped pool in his courtyard, and had an idea. An idea that would bring music and life and drama to the otherwise rather dull process of cell division, or mitosis. An idea that would inspire one of the best sketches showcased at the annual retreat of the grad program of the University of California, San Francisco, held in Lake Tahoe. An idea that could one day immortalize him in the DVD extras of a molecular biology text book.

“I was kind of mulling around the idea of doing some kind of synchronized swimming with mitosis and then, just looking down at the swimming pool one day, it all clicked,” says Engel. He wrangled 12 of his classmates and persuaded them to don bathing suits, color-coded caps and spend the afternoon splashing around in an aquatic reenactment of cell biology. And splash they did. Three of the six swimming “chromosomes” could not swim and had to rely on pool noodle “microtubules” for support as they were pulled to opposite ends of the “cell” by strong-armed “centrioles”.  To finish the job and cleave the cell in two, four white-capped “cell membrane units” appeared from the deck and jumped into the pool in boisterous synchrony to the final flourishes of Strauss’s Blue Danube waltz. The whole performance – from prophase to telephase – takes less than 60 seconds.

It took one hour and several takes to film, of course, including one accidental “non-disjunction” event - where too many chromosomes ended up in one new cell, too few in the other. That cut will be a special feature in the Platinum Edition DVD, which will include all the video sketches shown at the Lake Tahoe grad program retreat. Other highlights include some cell bio hip hop and a distinguished professor performing his Napoleon Dynamite dance.

Engel uploaded the video sketch to YouTube on September 19th. Almost 5000 people have viewed it since. Professors from both UCSF and UC San Diego have used the clip in various lectures and presentations. Engel has even fielded requests from high school science teachers for copies to use in their classes. “Acting out science is a great way to get kids to understand it,” says Engel, who perfected his science dramatics miming the stages of matter - solidly packing, liquidly spaced and gaseous chaos - with elementary school kids.

There is even a rumor that the mitosis clip will make its way to on the supplementary DVD package of the popular undergraduate tome, Molecular Biology of Cell, edited by UCSF professor Bruce Alberts. A new edition is expected next fall. “We’ll have to see if that happens,” Engel says. He has no immediate plans for future films, vowing to catch up on the month of research he missed while making his mitosis movie.