Why do you think you are awake right now? You might be aware that your circadian rhythm determines your sleep cycle. But how does your body keep time? Can a cell have a clock? And how can this system survive perturbations?
Gerben van Ooijen and his lab @vanOoijenLab work on finding out some of the cellular mechanisms that are behind the ability of an organism to keep time. They study modified algae that give off light during some phases of the circadian clock, to shine some light on the particularities of time-regulated genes. We also find out how circadian dysregulation could have an impact in cancer.