RESEARCHING THE CELL
The tiny thing with the big effect
Measuring just one hundredth of a millimeter, so visible only under a special microscope, they ensure that organs do their work, and more besides - that an entire organism is viable at all: cells are the indispensable building blocks of life - and their functioning provides information about what happens when there is inflammation in the innermost part of a human being. Long before the symptoms of inflammation cause pain.
They produce insulin in the pancreas, and in the blood they manufacture highly efficient chemical messengers that eliminate foreign bodies. By constant contraction, cells also ensure that the heart muscle performs its daily mechanical work reliably. They also guard a treasure in their nucleus: the hereditary information - the genes that make each person so unique.
Picture gallery cells (10 images)
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Understanding the cell - means understanding inflammation
Cells can be observed well under a high-resolution microscope: their intact cell wall, the membrane, and the proteins of which the cell consists. And also the so-called receptors. These are the sensors on the membrane that are initially important for inflammation. This is because the receptors are what track down infectious pathogens - bacteria, viruses, germs - and then immediately activate the cell to send out chemical messengers against the intruders. At the same time the cell also decides in a split second which antibodies it needs to eliminate the specific microbe very quickly.
A detailed understanding of what it is that ultimately becomes visible as reddened, scaly skin, as painful tissue destruction in the intestine or as a cardiac infarct in the heart needs a meticulous examination of the cell's modes of action. Breeding cell cultures makes this possible: for this purpose white blood cells from the vital fluid or skin cells are extracted and cultured. It is then possible to simulate what a cell does if it is stimulated by adding pathogens. Or if the cell is really reprogrammed by inserting genes into it.
Fundamental research for tomorrow's health
These innovative methods give hope that some day we really will understand why minimal genetic peculiarities can set in train an uncomfortable and sometimes life-threatening inflammatory escalation, or even that we will discover which of the immune system's cells are at all involved in the process of inflammation. These are the basic preconditions to enable new therapies and more precisely targeted active ingredients to be developed to treat rampant inflammatory diseases.
Technical literature for further reading: