One Cell at a Time: Measuring the Building Blocks of our Bodies

Get in touch with the smallest unit of life. Discover how single-cell research is reshaping what we know about health, disease, and ourselves.

Did you ever wonder how our body develops from a single cell? Or how our cells can turn into cancer cells? Our event takes you inside the fascinating world of single-cell research, where scientists study life one cell at a time to uncover how our bodies form, stay healthy, and sometimes fall ill. It is a field built on curiosity: spending years in uncertainty to ask what a cell is, what it remembers, and what it might become.

We begin with an introduction to single cell technologies. Researchers will share insights into how organs and tissues form, how our blood and immune systems develop, how mutations can trigger disease, and how we can make our immune system fight cancer. Along the way, you will see how machine learning and data science help us make sense of millions of measurements.

After the talk, small guided lab tours offer an up-close look at how these discoveries are made. You will be able to try simple experiments yourself - pipetting, visualizing cells, and even counting them. You can also follow live demonstrations of advanced laboratory equipment and explore real-world sequencing data to see how we turn raw measurements into meaningful discoveries.

Throughout the event, our researchers will be available to answer all your questions - about the science, the work, and what it is like to spend a career in pursuit of something that might never give a final answer. Together, we invite you to get in touch with the smallest unit of life - where understanding single cells opens new possibilities for predicting, preventing, and treating disease. 

Single Cell Focus Area, Berlin Institute of Health at Charité and Max Delbrück Center, Berlin

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