The Inner Life of the Cell

The Inner Life of the Cell is a short 3D animation demonstrating various biological mechanisms that occur within the cells of the human body.

When teaching biology, professors will often generate 3D animations to demonstrate certain concepts to their students in a much more visual way than would otherwise be possible. In the case of The Inner Life of the Cell the creators aimed for a much more cinematic, as opposed to academic, feel.

David Bolinsky, former lead medical illustrator at Yale, lead animator John Liebler, and Mike Astrachan are some of the  creators at XVIVO who made the movie. They created the animation for Harvard's Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. Most of the processes animated were the result of Alain Viel's, Ph.D. work describing the processes to the team. Alain Viel is an associate director of undergraduate research at Harvard University.

The movie took 14 months to create for 8.5 minutes of animation. It was first seen by a wide audience at the 2006 SIGGRAPH conference in Boston.