Shaira's Escapade [COMPLETED]

Chapter 6

NOTE: Those sentences/words in Italic with Bold are facts about the Cell Theory Timeline.

The time when she blinked, she was inside a university. She heard the students mention the name Camillo Golgi. She friendly approached the group of students and asked what they were talking about.

One of the students confidently told her about Camillo Golgi's accomplishments and showed her the black and white photographs along with the papers that he had researched. "The existence of the cell organelle now known as Golgi apparatus was officially reported by Mr. Camillo Golgi in 1898. Its existence was discovered while he was studying the nervous system back in 1897 with his black reaction, which was another discovery of his."

"Oh, he must be a genius!" Shaira exclaimed.

"Yes, he is!" The student proudly said.

While she was recalling the discussion, a bright flash of light stopped her in her tracks and forced her to look around.

"Not again," Shaira grunted. Then she saw two young men from not so far approaching where she was. She decided to hide behind the pile of boxes and observed for now. Shaira saw the third young man doing an experiment.

"Look at this Watson, this is one of Franklin's X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA, Photo 51, one of the clearest images of DNA."

"Is that the 51st X-ray diffraction pattern of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA using X-ray crystallography, a method to determine the three-dimensional structure of a crystal that lady Rosalind photographed last May 6, 1952?" 

If I am not mistaken he is James Watson and the other young man beside him is Francis Crick. They were the first scientists to accurately describe the molecule's complicated, double-helical structure.

"Yes, exactly." And that might be Wilkins.

Shaira accidentally found a calendar and she saw that she was in the month of January, the year 1953. As she listened to their conversations and watched them, she learned that Watson concluded that DNA was helical based on the visual. During their encounter with Wilkins, Watson acquired the essential DNA dimensions from Photo 51, which he and Crick later utilized to develop their suggested DNA structure. Thus, Crick determined that DNA contains two strands, with each strand running in opposite directions.

Out of nowhere, Shaira heard a musical band behind her. When she turned around, she saw the flag of the United States of America.

"I didn't even get a chance to talk to those men a while ago," she said.

While she was walking down the street, she saw a poster posted on the wall stating, "Harry Eagle made several contributions to the field of immunology, the most vital of which was the creation of Eagle's growth medium in 1959." She stared at the picture of the man wearing eyeglasses and when she looked on her left side, she shouted surprisingly, "Mr. Eagle?!" then she immediately covered her mouth.

Shaira politely apologized for shouting at him and told him that she read the poster about him. Mr. Eagle smiled at her and said, "At that time, I studied using mammalian cells in culture, or in vitro, which required cells to be grown in crude extracts. I determined the specific amino acids and the minimum vitamin and sugar requirements for cells, allowing researchers to grow and study cells and viruses in a defined medium that remained constant across experiments. Also, I include the description of differences in metabolism between healthy and malignant mammalian cells." 

Shaira's expression of wonderment made Mr. Eagle happy. "Mister, can I ask if you won any awards because of your research?" She curiously asked.

"Yes, it was one of the best moments of my life. I received the National Medal of Science in 1987, just last year." He merrily answered. Mr. Harry Eagle said goodbye to her and thanked her for her appreciation of his research when he remembered that he still needs to do something important.

Shaira felt that tiny droplets of water were pouring on her head. Therefore, she started to run and find a temporary shelter before it rains heavily. As she was looking, she saw a bright light approaching her. Then the next event happened, the rain stopped. 

(Photo[Mr. Harry Eagle]: https://twitter.com/c0nc0rdance/status/989157085320482816)