Question: What is the biggest discovery you have made on the topic of cells?

Zena Hadjivasiliou answered on 10 Mar 2015:

Hello :). I think making a single big discovery in science is rare! When we make progress in understanding something we are really relying on other people’s work and make contributions to it. All these small contributions together lead to progress in our thinking and science.

I would say that the most important contribution I have made so far relates to the way in which we inherit our mitochondria. Mitochondria are little organs inside our cells and they are very important for the production of energy. Without them, we could not have had complex cells and so animals, plants or humans. There are many things we know about mitochondria now. One interesting fact is that we inherit our mitochondria only from our mothers! So me and my brother have the same mitochondria as our mother, but our dad has different mitochondria. This kind of inheritance is interesting for many reasons but we don’t really know why it is that we inherit mitochondria only from our mother (why not from both our parents?!). I think the most important contribution I have made so far is to provide an explanation as to why we need to inherit our mitochondria this way. My explanation implies that this way our mitochondria are healthier and can be protected from diseases more efficiently.