• Question: How many ribosomes does a human pancreas have?

    Asked by Elisabethcabanas to Tom, Paul, Natasha, Ildiko, Ester, Eoin on 6 Nov 2017.
    • Photo: Paul McKeegan

      Paul McKeegan answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      That’s a good one! I am no mathematician, but:
      There are as many as 10 million ribosomes per cell, which is already quite a lot.
      I’m not sure of an estimate of cells in the pancreas, but apparently its 60-100g in an adult man. I weight about 100kg, so assuming I’ve got a big old pancreas, that makes my pancreas 100/100000g of Paul. That is 0.1%. So if we say there are 15 trillion cells in the body, my pancreas has about 1.5 billion cells, and therefore 15×10^15 or 15 quadrillion ribosomes. That seems quite a lot, and I had to google to find out that 1^15 is a quadrillion.

    • Photo: Natasha Myhill

      Natasha Myhill answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      I wouldnt even know how to begin to answer this question! A lot…. Paul has given a good estimate!

    • Photo: Ester Gil Vazquez

      Ester Gil Vazquez answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Amazing Paul, thanks!

    • Photo: Eoin McKinney

      Eoin McKinney answered on 6 Nov 2017:

      Great estimate! Just to put it into context – if all the ribosomes were grains of sand, they would easily fill up your entire school many times over……

Comments