• Question: Are cells Living?

    Asked by luiswalker to Tomasz, Matt, Dave on 21 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 21 Nov 2013:

      Cells are definitely living, if they weren’t then we wouldn’t be living either. They do die from time to time and get replaced, this is why it is important that we have stem cells to replace the dead and dying cells.

    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 22 Nov 2013:

      I guess the answer depends on what you define to be living. The definition that you probably have learnt in school for how to know if an animal is alive wouldn’t really work with cells in the same way, because individually cells don’t work the same as the whole animal does.

      Like Matt though, I would say that the cells I use in the lab are living and most of the cells in our bodies are living, but our cells are dying and being replaced all the time. This is why stem cells are important – to replace dead cells with new living cells.

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