Brain cells from skin cells

This is a beautiful image of human brain cells, which can now be grown from adult skin cells.

Cambridge University's Under the Microscope is a collection of videos that show glimpses of the natural and man-made world in stunning close-up. Check out the rest of the series here: http://bit.ly/A6bwCE

Yichen Shi:
"Brain neural stem cells derived from human skin cells: these stem cells express typical marker genes of brain neocortical stem cells, such as Pax6 (Red fluorescent labeled), and form a rosette structure resembling the transection of the neural tube."

The entire image is about 250 μm across (a really thick bit of human hair).

More info:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/br...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogen...

Picture taken by Yichen Shi in the Livesey Lab
http://www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/~liveseyl...

Voice over by Fred Lewsey.

Music by Peter Nickalls: http://www.peternickalls.com

• Category

  Education

[Rosie Grubb]

... capacity to renew themselves, and to give rise to the bodies many different cell types...

[dimenhigh]

Great videos - Thanks for the upload !

[xAfterDawnx]

There are different kinds of stem cells, ie: pluripotent ones, totipotent ones, and then the less differentiable multipotent and unipotent cells. Additionally, potency can be induced on somatic cells through modern day biogenetic technologies that have arisen in the past decade or so. Hope that helps.

[TableWolfMusic]

@CambridgeUniversity Are there only one type of stem cells? i.e. "blank" stem cells able to form into other types of cell, as per the video? Or are there some which are other types (of stem cell - not just any cell) which have a template built into them? If stem cells are "blank", how come, when "stem cells" are taken from human eggs, they spontaneously become new eggs? I heard this on an intro BBC radio iplayer show recently. Would really appreciate an answer on this please CambridgeUniversity.