Why I Argue With Men Over A Cell Named After Stars

 Katelyn Chiurri

Prof. John Horgan - HST401

28 January 2026

The first time I saw an astrocyte in person was also the first time I saw a mouse brain and a mouse, for that matter. In the dark basement right next to the morgue at NYU Langone Hospital I sat next to Dr. Melissa Cooper and wondered how the hell I had gotten this internship. Any microscope I had ever used was from way before I was born and could only image basic slides with sections of mammal tissue or plant stems. The microscope we were using cost more than two of my houses and imaged a whole, intact mouse brain. From that day on, I have been hooked on studying astrocytes, the cells named after stars. 

Astrocytes are the most abundant type of glial cell, which are cells that are not neurons that are in the central nervous system. Their job is to clear waste and provide nutrients for neurons. Up until Dr. Cooper’s project, astrocytes have only really been studied in vitro, or on a dish, so how they did their job was a mystery. Then, tissue clearing and light sheet microscopy came along. Tissue clearing is a method that removes all of the fats from tissue in order for it to be completely clear, with no visually obstructing molecules. Then, the tissue can be stained so that components of that tissue can be visualized under a microscope. In our case, mice brains are cleared and stained so that we can image astrocytes and see how they are doing their job. In these experiments, we showed that astrocytes create “networks” with each other that are changing in every moment and are different from neuronal networks (Cooper 2025).

So, why am I arguing with men about this and what are the implications of understanding these networks? First, every time Dr. Cooper or I have presented this project, neuroscientists (usually men) ask the same questions. Why should I care about astrocytes? How does this apply to my research about neurons? How does this affect the neuron? The simple, yet petty answer to these questions is “Do you like your neurons? Do you want to keep your neurons? Yes? Well without your astrocytes, your neurons would die.” This is why studying astrocytes is so important, but often scientists become biased into the beliefs of the scientists before them. This area of research is especially exciting to me because of this conflict. 

A big area that this research could have implications in is drug delivery. Astrocytes make up what is known as the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which is a barrier at the surface of the brain made up of capillaries, astrocytes, and pericytes (another type of glia) (Cleveland Clinic 2023). This barrier prevents some molecules from entering the blood stream and reaching the center of the brain. It particularly helps with keeping out harmful viruses and bacteria, but has created a challenge for doctors who need to send drugs into the brain because the BBB filters out most of the drug. To combat this for patients with Parkinson’s, for example, doctors give patients extremely high doses, but still, only some of the drug passes. Now that we know astrocytes communicate through networks, maybe we can use these BBB astrocytes to carry the drug for us, getting past the highly secure borders. This would allow for greater targeted therapies in the brain for diseases such as Parkinson’s, brain tumors, epilepsy, and more. 

This is just one example of the implications this research has. This one example, though, makes all of the arguments worth it and often leads neuron researchers to reflect on how astrocytes can fit into their research.

Image from a light sheet microscope of infected astrocytes (blue) and the astrocytes in their network (pink). Data credit: Melissa Cooper

Works Cited

Cooper, Melissa L et al. “Astrocytes connect specific brain regions through plastic gap junctional networks.” bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology 2025.07.18.665573. 22 Jul. 2025, doi:10.1101/2025.07.18.665573. Preprint.

Cleveland Clinic medical. “The Blood-Brain Barrier: Out with the Bad, in with the Good.” Cleveland Clinic, 17 April 2023, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24931-blood-brain-barrier-bbb.