As models...
In terms of biochemistry protists are used quite a bit as models to study photosynthesis. It's a lot easier to study a jar full of Chlorella or Euglena or something and grind it up and start to look at photosynthetic mechanisms than to even study wheat, which has different cell types. In molecular biology, ciliates have been used, for example, to look at production of telomeres using enzymes called temomerases. A lot of that work on aging by following changes in telomeres has been done with ciliates, Tetrahymena in particular. Also ciliates are used to study gene processing, because ciliates have nuclear dimorphism, meaning they have a micro-nucleus and a macro-nucleus. The macro-nucleus is made from the micro-nucleus and is very different. There are other sorts of examples from molecular biology where ciliates have been very useful. For example, gene processing in terms of introns and so on. Tom Check who got the Nobel prize a couple of years ago identified himself as a chemist. But what did he work on? Tetrahymena, in other words, ciliates.
And because protists are neat!
Medicine, as I mentioned, there's certainly a lot of protozoan parasitic amoebae, flagellates and sporozoa which are less of interest to us here than people who live in Africa. However, giardia is of interest to people all over the United States. This is, again, a protozoan. But the real reason to study protists--the rest is what you tell your managers--the real reasons is that protists are neat. I am interested in protists for one reason: when I was in third grade I looked through a microscope, I saw an amoeba and that was it, I was hooked and I wanted to be a protistologist. I'd say the rest of it is all, you know, the sort of garbage you tell the managers. Protists are neat. They've got personality. I will admit, my husband works on bacteria and I'm sure it's very nice to work on bacteria. But they have no personality, let's face it. You look through a microscope and these ciliates are running around, and you've got this fantastic little world that is probably better than anything Steven Spielberg can think of. Protists are neat.
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