Blood vessels are the structures of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away from the tissues. Blood vessels are needed to sustain life, because all of the body's tissues rely on their functionality.
A capillary is a small blood vessel, from 5 to 10 micrometres in diameter, and is part of the microcirculation system. Capillaries are microvessels and the smallest blood vessels in the body. They are composed of only the tunica intima, consisting of a thin wall of simple squamous endothelial cells. They are the site of the exchange of many substances from the surrounding interstitial fluid, and they convey blood from the smallest branches of the arteries (arterioles) to those of the veins (venules). Other substances which cross capillaries include water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, urea, glucose, uric acid, lactic acid and creatinine. Lymph capillaries connect with larger lymph vessels to drain lymphatic fluid collected in microcirculation.
Inflammation is part of the biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. The five cardinal signs are heat, pain, redness, swelling, and loss of function.
The lymphatic system, or lymphoid system, is an organ system in vertebrates that is part of the immune system, and complementary to the circulatory system. It consists of a large network of lymphatic vessels, lymph nodes, lymphoid organs, lymphatic tissue and lymph. Lymph is a clear fluid carried by the lymphatic vessels back to the heart for re-circulation. The Latin word for lymph, lympha, refers to the deity of fresh water, "Lympha".
The nephron is the minute or microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney. It is composed of a renal corpuscle and a renal tubule. The renal corpuscle consists of a tuft of capillaries called a glomerulus and a cup-shaped structure called Bowman's capsule. The renal tubule extends from the capsule. The capsule and tubule are connected and are composed of epithelial cells with a lumen. A healthy adult has 1 to 1.5 million nephrons in each kidney. Blood is filtered as it passes through three layers: the endothelial cells of the capillary wall, its basement membrane, and between the foot processes of the podocytes of the lining of the capsule. The tubule has adjacent peritubular capillaries that run between the descending and ascending portions of the tubule. As the fluid from the capsule flows down into the tubule, it is processed by the epithelial cells lining the tubule: water is reabsorbed and substances are exchanged ; first with the interstitial fluid outside the tubules, and then into the plasma in the adjacent peritubular capillaries through the endothelial cells lining that capillary. This process regulates the volume of body fluid as well as levels of many body substances. At the end of the tubule, the remaining fluid—urine—exits: it is composed of water, metabolic waste, and toxins.
In cell biology, extracellular fluid (ECF) denotes all body fluid outside the cells of any multicellular organism. Total body water in healthy adults is about 50–60% of total body weight; women and the obese typically have a lower percentage than lean men. Extracellular fluid makes up about one-third of body fluid, the remaining two-thirds is intracellular fluid within cells. The main component of the extracellular fluid is the interstitial fluid that surrounds cells.
In physiology, respiration is the movement of oxygen from the outside environment to the cells within tissues, and the removal of carbon dioxide in the opposite direction to the surrounding environment.
Wound healing refers to a living organism's replacement of destroyed or damaged tissue by newly produced tissue.
The endothelium is a single layer of squamous endothelial cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels and lymphatic vessels. The endothelium forms an interface between circulating blood or lymph in the lumen and the rest of the vessel wall. Endothelial cells form the barrier between vessels and tissue and control the flow of substances and fluid into and out of a tissue.
Reperfusion injury, sometimes called ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) or reoxygenation injury, is the tissue damage caused when blood supply returns to tissue after a period of ischemia or lack of oxygen. The absence of oxygen and nutrients from blood during the ischemic period creates a condition in which the restoration of circulation results in inflammation and oxidative damage through the induction of oxidative stress rather than restoration of normal function.
The innate immune system or nonspecific immune system is one of the two main immunity strategies in vertebrates. The innate immune system is an alternate defense strategy and is the dominant immune system response found in plants, fungi, prokaryotes, and invertebrates.
David Bolinsky is a former lead medical illustrator at Yale. He is a co-founder of XVIVO, which produced the movie The Inner Life of the Cell for Harvard's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.
In immunology, leukocyte extravasation is the movement of leukocytes out of the circulatory system (extravasation) and towards the site of tissue damage or infection. This process forms part of the innate immune response, involving the recruitment of non-specific leukocytes. Monocytes also use this process in the absence of infection or tissue damage during their development into macrophages.
Robert Arnold Lue was a Jamaican-born American cellular biologist. He was a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University, where he was the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching. Lue had been co-editor of the Harvard Data Science Review, and was previously the university's UNESCO Chair on Life Sciences and Social Innovation. Lue led LabXChange, an online learning platform, in partnership with the Amgen Foundation.
Drew Berry is an American biomedical animator at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. He produces animations of proteins and protein complexes to illustrate cellular and molecular processes.
A medical animation is a short educational film, usually based around a physiological or surgical topic, that is rendered using 3D computer graphics. While it may be intended for an array of audiences, the medical animation is most commonly utilized as an instructional tool for medical professionals or their patients.
XVIVO Scientific Animation is an American scientific and medical animation studio based in Hartford, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 2001 by David Bolinsky, former lead medical illustrator at Yale University, and Michael Astrachan. The company is most known for its short film The Inner Life of the Cell, which debuted at the 2006 SIGGRAPH conference in Boston. The project was commissioned by Harvard University’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, which currently holds the rights to the piece.
Alain Viel is the director of Northwest Undergraduate Laboratories and senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.
The pathophysiology of Parkinson's disease is death of dopaminergic neurons as a result of changes in biological activity in the brain with respect to Parkinson's disease (PD). There are several proposed mechanisms for neuronal death in PD; however, not all of them are well understood. Five proposed major mechanisms for neuronal death in Parkinson's Disease include protein aggregation in Lewy bodies, disruption of autophagy, changes in cell metabolism or mitochondrial function, neuroinflammation, and blood–brain barrier (BBB) breakdown resulting in vascular leakiness.
Janet Iwasa is an American data visualization expert and assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Utah.
