A project led by a trio of graduate students with an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Michigan focused on the use of mathematics to learn more about the organization of a cell’s nucleus in hopes of eventually reprogramming the cell to combat disease. The new technology, Pore-C, uses much more data to visualize how all pieces within a cell’s nucleus interact. The researchers used a mathematical technique called hypergraphs, which develop relationships with cells. The method, which Rajapakse and collaborators tested on several types of cells, revealed what the researchers termed self-sustaining transcription clusters, a subset of proteins that plays a role in maintaining the cells.
