Hepatocytes or liver cells are the most abundant cell type in the human liver, and play multiple roles, including building proteins, producing bile to aid digestion of fats and chemically processing molecules found normally in the body, like hormones, as well as foreign substances like medicines and alcohol.

Image courtesy of Donna Beer Stolz, University of Pittsburgh.

A confocal micrograph of Drosophila (fruit fly) ovirioles. In female insects, ovirioles are tubes in which eggs cells form at one end and complete development as they reach the other end of the tube. Scientists use insect ovarioles to study basic processes that help insects, including those that cause disease, reproduce quickly.

Image courtesy of National Institutes of Health.

The face of a 6-day-old zebrafish larva, one of science’s preferred animal models. What look like eyes will develop into nostrils and the bulges on either side will become eyes.

Image courtesy of Oscar Ruiz and George Eisenhoffer, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Micrograph of mouse keratinocytes, a major cell type of the epidermis or outermost layer of skin.

Image courtesy of Nancy Kedersha, ImmunoGen, Inc.

Darkfield micrograph of human scalp section.

Image courtesy of Anita L. Tellier, Rochester Institute of Technology.

A confocal micrograph of blood vessel networks in the intestine of an adult mouse.

Image courtesy of Satu Paavonsalo and Sinem Karaman, University of Helsinki.

A fluorescent micrograph of a section of small intestine of a mouse. The finger-like projections are villi, which line the intestinal tract and increase surface area for absorption.

Image courtesy of Amy Engevik, Medical University of South Carolina.

An optical projection tomograph depicts the lung of a 16 ½ day old embryonic mouse, with airways highlighted in pink and epithelial progenitors in green.

Image courtesy of Kamryn Gerner-Mauro and Jichao Chen at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

A trichinella cyst is depicted in pork muscle. Trichinella is a parasitic worm known to cause trichinosis, an intestinal infection that, untreated, can progress to serious inflammation of the heart and lungs.

Image courtesy of Nathan P. Myhrvold, Modernist Cuisine.

A micrograph using confocal, fluorescence and image stacking technologies depicts the optic nerve head of a rodent. Astrocytes in yellow, contractile proteins in red and vasculature in green.

Image courtesy of Hassanin Qambari and Jayden Dickson, Lions Eye Institute, Australia.