Washington: Lab techniques developed in the past few years are revealing new secrets of our cells. Scientists can now zero in on individual cells to examine their DNA or the gene activity. That has led to an ambitious plan to determine every type of cell in the human body.
What if you wanted to study a banana, but you only had a banana-strawberry-orange smoothie ?
The results from all those fruits would be mixed together, telling you little about your fruit of choice.
That's like the problem scientists have had in studying cells of the body. Until recently, they had to analyze bulk tissue samples, producing a squishy average of results from many cell types.
And there are a lot of cell types in our bodies. For example, the inner lining of the colon has more than 50 different kinds.
New lab techniques are letting researchers analyze thousands of cells at a time and separate them into specific types.
So essentially, scientists say, they can turn a fruit smoothie into seperate fruits.
This single-cell analysis has opened the door to a variety of discoveries about the biological building blocks of our bodies.
For example, it can be used to look at patterns of genetic mutation in individual tumor cells, to track how a cancer developed.
Now, scientists around the world are trying to build an atlas of every type of cell in people. Eventually they plan to profile 10 billion cells.
Why do that? Scientists say it will help them create better therapies for all kinds of diseases.
Also read- Protected island reserve endangered by climate change
(With inputs from APTN)
