Starting a skin cell culture

Two days ago, Alex donated a small piece of his skin. We are now growing and expanding skin cells from his biopsy and will turn them into stem cells.

Alex: What’s the brown area in the upper left corner of the picture?

Birgitt: This is a piece of your skin how it looks under a microscope. When I took the biopsy two days ago, I used a small instrument that looks like a pen to cut your skin, about the size of a small pea. Later in the lab, I cut the piece into 15 little pieces, which I then transferred to a tissue culture vessel.
We actually have a video showing this process in more detail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNNL5St3Yhs.

Alex:  Interesting, what else do I see on the picture? There is a rim around the skin tissue with little dots. What are those dots?

Birgitt:  Those dots are cells growing out of the skin biopsy and attach to the bottom of the culture vessel. These cells are called keratinocytes. Soon, we will observe another cell type also known as fibroblasts. These fibroblasts are the cells that we will turn into stem cells.

Alex:  Wow, those are my cells, how exciting! How many skin cells are you growing from me?

Birgitt: In four to six weeks, we will have grown about 20 Million of your skin cells. The journey of your skin cells has begun.