• Question: what is the most advanced type of cell that you have come across or found out about

    Asked by to Clare, Ian, Jess, Lewis on 20 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ian Hands-Portman

      Ian Hands-Portman answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      Advanced is difficult concept when it comes to cells and biology – evolution isn’t a ladder of improvements with us as the top, it’s a random tree of adaptations to the world and we just think we’re the best.

      Even so, if you want to go for potential to grow and show complicated behaviour as a measure of ‘advanced’ then I’ve worked with human embryonic stem cells – cells that have the potential to become any human cell and if put into someone’s uterus would turn into a full on scientist given nine months of pregnancy plus about thirty years and a good education.

      They’re very very hard to get hold of and do research on, the people who asked me to look at them wanted to find out if they were safe to implant into patients to try to repair brain damage.

      As cells go they were very dull – they’re in a sort of ‘standby mode’ with a huge nucleus ( where the chromosomes and DNA are ) and small cytoplasm ( the bit where most of the chemistry of the cell takes place), they don’t do much at all.

      They become interesting when they get a signal to differentiate – that’s become something more specific like a liver cell or a brain cell, then they start to change their shape, rearrange their insides and totaly change how they behave. People are still trying to understand what the triggers are that make them change into different types of cell.

    • Photo: Lewis Dean

      Lewis Dean answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      Well, I don’t really work with cells (anything smaller than a whole animal is a bit small for me!). However, as I study how animals behave, I think that nerve cells are amazing. They transmit all the electrical signals that make us move, make us think and allow us to feel things. Some of them can be huge as well. For example, we have one nerve cell that runs right from the bottom of our back all the way down our legs.

    • Photo: Jess Smith

      Jess Smith answered on 20 Mar 2014:

      Each cell is designed to suit a particular job, so none is really more ‘advanced’ than another one. Each different type of cell is the best at its own job, and they are specially designed to be like that. So embryonic stem cells (which Ian talks about) are designed to kick off the whole process by differentiating (changing) in to different types of cell. They are truly amazing, and you can sort of think about them as parent cells. But the other cells are all experts in their own areas too, so red blood cells are the best at carrying oxygen, and are specially designed to do so, and white blood cells are the best at fighting diseases.

      What I find most incredible about cells is how they all work so well together, in such a complicated system, to do all the ‘body jobs’ that we need to survive!

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