Life through the lens
Introduction: Stem Cells
Stem cells are unspecialized cells that serve as the source, or "stem," for specialized cells like heart, brain, or blood cells. Found in days-old embryos and a few adult organs, stem cells have two unique properties: they can change into other types of cells, and theoretically, they can divide without limit. The images and movies below were taken at the Microscope Imaging Station.

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Heart cells grown from mouse embryonic stem cells - movie 1
These beating cardiac myocytes (heart cells) were grown from mouse embryonic stem cells.

The movie is shown in real time.
Cardiac myocytes were cultured from pluripotent mouse embryonic stem cells using standard techiniques. For imaging, cell aggregates were transferred to small, sterile plexiglass chambers attached to a coverslip, containing differentiation media. Cells were maintained on an inverted compound microscope in an environmental chamber kept at 37°C, 7.0% CO2. Images were taken with a 40x phase contrast objective and a digital video camera.