Apoptosis is a mechanism in which death of an unhealthy cell is initiated and orchestrated through a tightly controlled molecular cascade. The steps of this cascade are visualised in this video.
Drew Berry, who created the stunning animation, says:
“The technique I used to make it work was difficult and very slow to pull off. The whole 4 min sequence took me around 12 months to research, construct and generate the imagery. I think visually it is my most successful piece at showing the mechanisms that emerge from randomly wandering, cytoplasmic molecules and membrane bound receptors.”
(Molecular Animation of Cell Death Mediated by the Fas Pathway, Sci. STKE 2007 (380)