• Question: How do cells work?

    Asked by Sasha Lily to Richard, Carolyn on 12 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Richard Unwin

      Richard Unwin answered on 12 Nov 2015:

      Hi Sasha. Massive question. The best way to think of a cell is like a factory – loads of little machines doing loads of different things to achieve one role (depending on the type of cell, a muscle cell has some machinery different to a nerve cell, for example). These machines work together to take in things the cell needs from outside, respond to messages from the rest of the body, make new cells, repair itself, nake it’s own energy, and get rid of its own wase. Each single cell has probably 10.000 to 20,000 of these machines, which we call proteins, working together. It’s complicated stuff!

    • Photo: Carolyn Nielsen

      Carolyn Nielsen answered on 13 Nov 2015:

      Richard is right- cells are amazingly complex. I always find it incredible that we are made up of so many millions of cells, that are each individually so so complicated. Different cell types have different functions as well, and there are differences between plant cells (which have walls) and animal cells (no walls) as well. All cells have to perform basic functions though, like Richard has said, and so there are a lot of common features. For example, the nucleus of the cell is like the headquarters and is where all the genetic information is stored in the form of genes making up chromosomes. The genes act like an instruction manual for the cell, but the cells don’t read the whole manual and only act on parts of it. This is how you can end up with a muscle cell looking and acting completely differently to a nerve cell, even though they have the same genes in the nucleus.

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