The Living Portrait

This image depicts a "self-portrait" of the single-celled microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, created using its own live culture on an agar plate. In the drawing, the two long, whisker-like filaments represent flagella, which drive its motility, while the large, cup-shaped structure inside represents the chloroplast responsible for photosynthesis. Despite being single-celled, it is a eukaryote with highly complex biological mechanisms. This makes it an incredible model organism for studying biological phenomena that are difficult to observe in complex organisms like trees or humans. The giant tree canopy behind the living portrait highlights a beautiful juxtaposition: both entities are alive, green, and photosynthetic, sharing a fundamental biology despite their vast difference in scale. At UNB, Chlamydomonas is used as a model organism to study photosynthesis and aging, research that could ultimately help unravel the biological secrets of giant trees and even ourselves.