Silly Ciliates -Tetrahymena

Commonly found in fresh water, Tetrahymena are ciliated protozoans that are important model organisms for biomedical research. It was in Tetrahymena that Thomas Cech, Nobel Laureate in chemistry, discovered ribozymes and it was in this same organism that much understanding of telomeres has been realized. Tetrahymena also was the system where the function of histone acetylation was revealed. If you keep guppies, you should know that there's even a disease link between the two. Serving the diverse needs of researchers in the field is the Tetrahymena Genome Database where visitors can access sequence information, navigate colleagues' web sites, display their rather unusual genetic code, and access Cornell University's centralized stock repository.

[www.ciliate.org]