An embryonic lung transforms into a tree-like structure through a developmental process known as branching morphogenesis. How these delicate, complex structures form in a growing animal is still not well understood. Boston University postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ian Kinstlinger, captured the continuous growth of lungs taken from a developing mouse, taking microscope images every three hours to show lung growth over the course of several days. In these images, specialized epithelial cells on the lung’s surface express a green fluorescent protein. Between the branches, black spaces are filled with soft mesenchyme cells, not visible in these images.
