The image shows a small piece of a mouse intestine. Intestinal stem cells are located at the bottom of structures called ‘crypts’ and they are responsible to generate all the other cells in the intestinal epithelium. The red-color cells represent all the cells generated from the intestinal stem cells for a period of two days. The green granules are components of the Paneth cells, which are cells located in between the stem cells, also in the crypts, to support their function. The nucleus of every single cell in this region is shown in blue.

Our research is focused on how fasting or aging can change the function of intestinal stem cells. This image was taken to address how many cells would be generated by the intestinal stem cells two days after a drug administration.