In a tongue-in-cheek contest of microscopic mobility, a line of
bone marrow stem cells from Singapore beat out dozens of competitors
to claim the title of the world’s fastest cells. They whizzed
across a petri dish at the breakneck speed of 5.2 microns per minute
— or 0.000000312 kilometers per hour.
Results of the World Cell
Race were announced on 3 December at the annual meeting of the American
Society for Cell Biology in Denver, Colorado. Organizers declared the
competition a success: “50 participating labs all over the world!
70 cells lines recorded! without a single dollar to fund the project!”
says Manuel Théry from Institut de Recherche en Technologies
et Sciences pour le Vivant (iRTSV) in Grenoble, France.
Behind the fun is a serious goal: looking broadly at how cells
move. Ultimately, cell migration lets embryos and organs develop and
allows to cancer spread. The contest provides the first reference for
many cell types migrating under the same conditions, and is already
leading to some interesting comparisons, says Théry. For example,
stem cells and cancer cells seem to be faster than their mature and
healthy counterparts.
Rather than actually racing cells at a scientific conference, teams
shipped frozen cells to designated laboratories in Boston, London, Heidelberg,
Paris, San Francisco, and Singapore. Thawed cells were placed in wells
containing “race tracks”. Each track was 400 microns (0.4
mm) long and coated with a substance that gives cells some traction.
Digital cameras recorded cells for 24 hours to determine the fastest
run down the track for each cell line. In total, about 200 cells of
each cell type were timed to see how long it took the fastest individual
cell of each type to reach the end of its track.
