Here we can see the underside of mouse tail skin.

Claire Cox:

"The epidermis, which is the outer layer of mammalian skin, is maintained by numerous stem cell populations. The identification of the factors involved in controlling these populations and thus epidermal maintenance is highly valuable. Not only will it provide information as to how a complex tissue is organised and controlled, the principles that are learnt can be applied to other tissues. Through the work that I am completing, I hope that I can also gain a perspective as to what goes wrong in disease processes such as skin cancer. Skin cancer is one of the most prevalent cancers in the world, and understanding what goes wrong and the factors involved could potentially lead to new ideas as to prevention and treatment."

The image is 700µm in width - this is about the size of the full stop in this sentence. About 5000 cells would fit on the surface of a full stop.

Many thanks to:

Dr Michaela Frye, Frye Lab members, Peter Humphreys, Margaret McLeish.

More info:

Wellcome Trust Centre For Stem Cell Research

http://www.cscr.cam.ac.uk

Department of Physiology Development and Neuroscience http://www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/

Claire Cox's profile:

http://www.cscr.cam.ac.uk/research/researchers-by-group/frye-lab/claire-cox

Graduate School of Life Sciences and its annual Poster and Image Competitions

http://www.biomed.cam.ac.uk/gradschool/comp/2011/index.html

Music by Peter Nickalls:

http://www.peternickalls.com

Find more Cambridge research here:

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research