• Question: How many types of different cells are inside our body?

    Asked by jcoo1787 to Tomasz, Matt, Dave, Aoife on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: David Christensen

      David Christensen answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      I’m not sure whether any scientist would have a certain answer about how many different types of cell there are in the body. It’s hard to count and some different types are very similar, so sometimes it would be hard to say whether 2 cells are different types of cell that are quite similar or are the same type, but a bit different. I hope that makes sense and you know what I mean! Also, some types of cell are quite rare and quite hard to find in the body – this includes stem cells: some types of stem cells found inside us are very rare and scientists are still finding new stem cells inside us!

      I think a rough guess would be a couple of hundred. Maybe 200-300 different types of cell!

    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      I’m with Dave, it’s really hard to tell cells apart because even though they look the same they could different. For example a lot of white blood cells look the same but have totally different proteins on their surfaces so are different cells.

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