'The Inner Life of the Cell' Animated by John Liebler

I make my living creating art and animation of the beautiful and often surreal world that exists within our living (and sometimes dying) cells. Although I've been doing it since the late ’90s, It was in 2006 that The Inner Life of the Cell brought my work to the widest audience on Earth: Youtube.

Originally planned as a classroom tool, Inner Life takes the viewer through many of the inner workings of a leukocyte (or white blood cell) showing many of the cellular structures and organelles along the way. I spent about a year and a half creating about eight and a half minutes of animation under the guidance of Dr. Robert Lue and Dr. Alain Viel. As the footage was rendered, we started to get a feeling that this was something special.

When it was finished, I thought that the visuals could stand on their own to show the wonder of the cellular landscape, even without labels or explanation. So I made the three minute edit, and asked Matt Berky (Massive Productions) to set it to music. I submitted it to the 2006 Siggraph Computer Animation Festival, where it was shown in the Electronic Theater.

It ended up on Youtube.

And took on a life of its own.

So, to kick things off on this blog, I've uploaded a fresh, clean version of the three minute, music-only version that was shown at SIGGRAPH in 2006, using the original uncompressed frames. Yes, it was originally 4:3 standard definition, and I have cropped the frame a bit to match modern aspect ratios, so purists may be offended, but It's not like I made Greedo shoot first or anything.

Copyright Info:
“The Inner Life of the Cell” was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is Copyright © 2006 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. AUDIO & VIDEO - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

This video was published here with permission from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

[danieldoughtie]

i spent 20 years peering into this world with an electron microscope. Thank you for bringing this world..this universe within our universe to life

[erkut]

OMG!. How beautifully created. Thanks for sharing.

[WarEqualsPeace]

This series of videos is breathtakingly beautiful and mind expanding. I don't really have the words to describe how joyful it is to be able to see an accurate representation of this machinery and know it is operating inside of each cell in all of us. I have shown your videos to my son, my friends, my family to share some of the wonder I feel of life, of biochemistry, just... I am awed and I want to thank you.

[JoystickTX]

Awesome. I was blown away when I first saw this at the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, TX last year. Too bad that Darwin couldn't see what we found out about the cell in 150 years, he might think that this may not have been due to random chance.

[dgalloway]

I have watched and rewatched this many times over the last decade and you deserve way more likes, subs, etc. than you have, if you even care about that sort of thing, but either way I hope you know this video is how I teach others about cells.

[mstorey]

Thank you John for creating this magnificent work of art that helps all of us catch a glimpse of the beauty inside of ourselves and life itself. I have used this with my college biology courses since it hit the web. Great contribution as I am confident it has inspired many around the world. Bravo!

[WilmaRevolution]

This is beautiful.... it's like watching a miracle, the unexplainable happen... and it happens inside of us every moment of our lives.... and the majority of us have no idea of this miracle taking place inside of us....otherwise we'd take better care of ourselves. Science... Biology... should be taught with so much more interest to everyone. It's what makes us and the world and we need to know more about ourselves❤ thank you for this. Shared several times😊

[dawnhabeck]

Thank you for an amazing contribution to humanity that is largely unrecognized but should be taught to every single person

[arifbolat]

İşte bu Allah'ın varlığının isbatı değilde nedir.
Bazı hücrelerin yüz milyon adedini bir araya getirsen 1 iğne ucu kadar ancak yer kaplıyor.
Bu kadar küçük ve muhteşem bir sistem akılsızca, şuursuzca kendiliğinden olabilir mi?
Hiç mümkün müdür ki böylesine muhteşem bir sanatın sanatkarı olmasın.

[seamus]

This is incredible, thanks. It seems the there is complexity all the way down.

[barbaryanneominous]

THANK YOU for not making Greedo shoot first!!! Amazing creator, but every time he revisits his work... "Now, matters are worse!" Beautiful, by the way -- I've loved this since 2006. These days, I would love you to render these animations (cell series especially) for fulldome immersive teaching at 1K or better resolution. Industry standard now is about 4K but I'm not that picky :-)

[ItsDyar]

How did you do that 9 years ago?!?! Fantastic

[PasseScience]

Thank you for this amazing work, a small question regarding a possible use of this material:
It's in the context of a video on this subject for my YouTube channel (medium size 40000 subscribers), Let me detail: my format is usually 10-20 minutes and I go quite a lot into details, trying to present very sound and accurate science. I do not monetize my channel (no ad) but I use Tipeee for donation (in practice it's low I mainly work on my channel for free). The request would be to use some cuts of this video, maybe 2 or 3 segments of few seconds to illustrate specific points, for which you will of course remain credited, either in the description or with a visible footer added in the video itself, or both. Fill free to ask me for any additional pieces of information you might need. I'd be very glad to quote this amazing work for illustration.

[altaccount]

Hello there! This is a spectacular animation, and is very well done! It gives me a great vision of what goes on inside cells. A quick question though, what soundtrack/song is this? Is there a link to it on YouTube or another music related website? 

[DarklingMoonMusic]

wow I didn't realise YOU made this famous video! Well Done!

[YYMe]

It's beautiful and surreal. I wish I understood what I was looking at.

[petrakhoury]

Congrats for this amazing video!!
is it possible to get the full video (7~8 min) in high resolution?
thx

[seamus]

John, I've been studying pine trees at Myles Standish Forest and am struck how spirals and double spirals show up in the cone, branches, trunk and so on. I wonder if the molecular designs are gracefully geometric before they succumb to gravity, rain and other larger forces.

[سلمىالشامسي-حد]

قال تعالى:"قَالَتْ رُسُلُهُمْ أَفِي اللَّهِ شَكٌّ فَاطِرِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ يَدْعُوكُمْ لِيَغْفِرَ لَكُم مِّن ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُؤَخِّرَكُمْ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۚ قَالُوا إِنْ أَنتُمْ إِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثْلُنَا تُرِيدُونَ أَن تَصُدُّونَا عَمَّا كَانَ يَعْبُدُ آبَاؤُنَا فَأْتُونَا بِسُلْطَانٍ مُّبِينٍ"

[mjuuuu]

Hello! Why did you cut off all XVIVO mentions?