The Inner Life of a Cell

As I attempt to pass along a suitable knowledge of cell biology to my students, I remain amazed at the intricacies of what goes on inside of the cell.  We continue to work out the everyday workings of cellular life which have survived endlessly for over 3 billion years.  Sadly, my simple, static, 2-dimensional representations in the classroom fail to show the beauty at work in each of their 50-trillion cells.  

Because our brains live in this middle-sized world where cells appear lifeless, we often fail to recognize that millions and millions of activities and reactions take place every second.  Even more amazing: the molecular structures working to keep us living aren't actually alive themselves.  The living cell develops out of these complex interactions of nonliving, but not inert, molecules.

The Harvard Medical School asked David Bolinsky and his company to create a realistic representation of life inside of a cell.  This 8-minute version shows so many amazing molecules at work we must remember that even this beautiful work has been simplified.  The cell runs like a NYC as if every hour were rush hour.  RNA rushes out of the nucleus to find ribosomes in the cytoplasm and the proteins fill up these "giant" sacks.  These cool molecules, called kinesins, carry the bundle of proteins throughout the cell on cytoskeleton highways.  

Check out this version of Harvard's "The Inner Life of the Cell".  On You-Tube, you can watch versions which take out the music and have a narrator describing the actions of the cell.  I think that I prefer this one as the simplicity of the music balances the complexity of the life of the cell in the beauty that we call life.