How different are human and chimpanzee brain stem cells?

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