Back to Featured Projects Seeing Cells Exhibit Overview Seeing Cells in Life Theory of Cells as Basic Units of Life Protoplasm as the Living Stuff Cell Specialization From Fertilization to Organisms Presenting and Representing "The" Cell Experimental Manipulations Resolving the Inside of Cells Inside Living Cells Seeing How Cell Parts Move Seeing Cell Aggregates Designing Synthetic Cells Imagining Cells Seeing Cells Videos Home Groundbreaking Research at the Research Centers Eugene Bell Center Featured Projects Seeing Cells Exhibit Inside Living Cells In the 20th century, invention of new purely optical methods, such as differential interference contrast and phase contrast, enabled researchers to study living cells and their organelles in motion. Download Inside Living Cells These inventions made observing living cells much easier. Researchers realized that cells not only move as a whole, but that organelles inside cells are constantly moving in the cytoplasm. HoverTouch to magnify Images of oral mucus Long Description Differential interference contrast (DIC) image of oral mucus (left). Phase contrast image of oral mucus (right). Close James 19761 To study the mechanisms of this motion, biologists like the ’s Robert Allen hooked up movie cameras to his microscopes and recorded the movement of cells, like amoebae, over long time periods. HoverTouch to magnify Amoeba proteus pseudopod formation Allen 19612 Seeing and documenting living cells in motion transformed how people thought of cells. Once static, fixed structures, cells and their parts were now visible as dynamic entities that allow changes in the cell as a whole, like cell division and differentiation. Focusing attention further inside cells raised the question: how do those parts move within the cell? Previous Panel Next panel Download Inside Living Cells James, J. Light Microscopic Techniques in Biology and Medicine. Amsterdam: Martinus Nijhoff Medical Division, 1976. Page 188, Figure 9.12. Allen, Robert Day. 1961. “A New Theory of Ameboid Movement and Protoplasmic Streaming.” Experimental Cell Research 8: 17-31. Supplement. Page 28, Figure 5.