The Human Cell

The Human Cell is a living cutaway of a human cell that runs in the browser. Everything moves: proteins drift through the membrane, vesicles ride motor proteins along the cytoskeleton, and each chromosome keeps to its own territory in the nucleus. Click any of the 19 parts and the camera flies in. At the smallest scales the scene switches to molecular close-ups, down to the DNA at the tip of a chromosome.

Every model is built in code with Three.js; there are no ready-made 3D models. Custom shaders give the structures their motion and the cutaway, and a post-processing pass adds depth of field and bloom. Organelles are drawn close to their real proportions, and every paragraph, number and “did you know” links to its source.

It’s available in seven languages, and every view has its own page, so search engines can read what the 3D scene shows. Readers can send a note on any section straight from the page.