Every Man an Island, Pt. 1

In a certain sense, every man is an island; this interesting finding comes from Jeffrey Gordon’s lab in Washington University. To understand why that is so, we need to understand something about the make up of our bodies. Adult human bodies are comprised of 10^13 cells. These cells are broadly divided into different types that compose the tissues and organs that make us function the way we do. However, those are not all the cells that are in the human body. In addition to our own cells, we have 10^14 bacterial cells that reside in and on us. Think about it: only one out of ten cells in our bodies contain the DNA inherited from our parents. The other nine cells are not human.