Unboxing the Cell: Organelles and Subcellular Structures

 Institute of Biology Auditorium, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City

October 07-08, 2019

In 1910, Russian Botanist Konstantin Mereschowski (1855-1921) outlined in The Theory of Two Plasms as the Basis of Symbiogenesis, a hypothesis that chloroplasts arose from a process of symbiosis. In 1918, French scientist Paul Portier (1866-1962) in Les Symbiotes, proposed that mitochondria arose from a similar process. In the 1920's American biologist, Ivan Wallin (1883-1969), provided the first experimental evidence supporting the hypothesis that the ancestors of mitochondria were free-living bacteria. Then in 1967, Lynn Margulis (1983-2011) substantiated the theory on the strength of microbiological and DNA evidence, which she explained in "Symbiosis in Cell Evolution" (1981) to include cilia and flagella, and that eukaryotic cells are the product of interactions among ancient prokaryotic cells is one of the defining theories of modern biology.

This year, the Philippine Society for Cell Biology commemorates this century-old theory with its theme centering around research on organelles and subcellular structures, endosymbiotic or not. In particular, we highlight the importance of the mitochondria in biology and medicine, and in tracing the history of human migrations. Young researchers who are doing cellular and molecular work on mitochondria, chloroplast, and other subcellular structures are highly encouraged to present their work.