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How different are human and chimpanzee brain stem cells?

Updated: Jan 16, 2020

by Felipe Mora-Bermúdez

We share between 94 - 99% of our DNA with our chimpanzee cousins, but how do our brains compare? In this video, Felipe Mora-Bermúdez explains what he has learned by studying brain stem cells from humans and chimps.

Read his full publication on this work in the journal eLife!

Felipe is a postdoc in the lab of Wieland Huttner at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

Related resources

Watch a short video, data collected by Felipe, which shows human and chimp brain stem cells dividing.

What does it mean to be human? (Smithsonian)

Scientific American article about the genetic differences between humans and chimps

DNA: Comparing humans and chimps (American Museum of Natural History)

Read more on brain stem cell divisions in a perspectives article by Felipe and Wieland Huttner.

Video Credits: • Chimpanzee photo by Cyril Ruoso, Minden/National Geographic.

• “Le Penseur” Sculpture by Auguste Rodin, photo by Andrew Horne/Wikipedia.

• Photo of Felipe by Leonie von Löwenthal.

• Video written, narrated, and drawn by Felipe Mora-Bermúdez. Edited and produced by Lisa Dennison.

#organoids #stemcells #brains #chimpanzees #humans #development #neurobiology #cell

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