The minute 2:41 of the three fans in the second extra time of the final between Argentina and France marks the most important save in the history of Argentine soccer. When Emiliano “Dibu” Martinez blocked with his left leg the poisonous volley of Randal Kolo Muani.
Dibu did nothing but avoid a national collapse. The play that became memesT-shirt and tattoo is now the central motif on the cover of the latest issue of the Journal of Molecular Biology (JMB), a magazine that has been unraveling the mysteries of cellular life for 64 years.
How did the best goalkeeper of the year get to that place? How could it be otherwise, thanks to an Argentine: martin stortzbiologist from the University of Buenos Aires who is currently doing a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute of Maryland, United States.
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The work that he published together with six other colleagues of the Conicet and the UBA focuses on two transcription factors, that is, the proteins that turn genes on and off in cells. One of them, SOX2, controls the development of the embryo, although in adults it is involved in cancers of the lung, prostate, pancreas, colon and breast, among others. The other, the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), mediates the control regulation.
“Surprisingly, we found that SOX2 can block GR activity, so this relationship could be relevant in some tumors”, explains Stortz to Fontevecchia mode. “Studying these mechanisms allows us to better understand how tumor cells work. It is a novel result, which must be further explored to analyze its scope and possible clinical relevance”.
At the end of the year, when Martín learned that the article would be on the cover of the JMB, the furor for the third star left everything served. “The Age of Ideas” interpreting SOX2 as Dibu Martínez, that “unexpected player” that blocked the action of GR (represented by Kolo Muani) in the cell nucleus”, he explains. A lover of drawing and painting, he painted the original photo with a digital pen on the touch screen of his computer. The result is the culminating scene of the save within the upper section of the Cup, all surrounded by the reference cellular components.
FM J.L.
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