• Question: how many types of cells are in the human body

    Asked by tomsabomb to Callum, Gina, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 9 Nov 2012. This question was also asked by amirah.
    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      Loads!! Nerve cells, muscle cells, blood cells, sperm cells, egg cells (my personal favourite! – see my profile!) and many more! All the different types of cells are specialized so they can carry out their job properly. For example egg cells are very large as they have to contain a lot of nutrients which are needed for when the egg gets fertilised by the sperm and becomes an embryo.

    • Photo: Michelle Linterman

      Michelle Linterman answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      There are hundreds of different types of cells in the body, all doing their own jobs to make sure the body functions as a whole. The trouble with counting the number of different cell types is that we have not discovered them all yet! There is still cell-type hunting to be done!

    • Photo: Sam Godfrey

      Sam Godfrey answered on 10 Nov 2012:

      According to Wikipedia there are at least 300, but there are most likely many more as new cells are being reported all the time. Cells can also change as they get older and mature. There are certainly enough cells to allow us to survive comfortably which is pretty amazing in itself.

    • Photo: Callum Johnston

      Callum Johnston answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      See how many types of cell you can think of. All the different organs in your body have different types of cell that are good at their own job. Just starting at your head you have different cells that make you hair, skin, teeth, tongue and brain!

    • Photo: Gina Tse

      Gina Tse answered on 14 Nov 2012:

      There are absolutely hundreds of cells!

      The cell types in the body can be grouped into 4 types (tissue):

      – epithelial – these cells present themselves as sheets, for example our skin and all the “lining” of our organs such as the stomach lining are made of epithelial cells
      – connective – these cells stick our organs and other parts together as well as to our skeleton
      – muscle – these cells are specially designed to allow for movement
      – nerve cells – these a responsible for carrying electrical signals/messages around our body

      Being a cancer scientist, I know that there are over 200 possible types of cancer and this is because cancer is the disease of the cell, and potentially any cell can become cancerous.

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