Mission Membran - Zucker in die Blutbahn

Mira and Carlos are about to run a 10K. To fuel up before the race, they eat a banana. Your mission: transport the glucose it contains from the intestine, through the intestinal epithelial cells, and into the bloodstream!

Working together as microscopic helpers, you collect matching sets of cards and guide ions and glucose across the membrane of an intestinal epithelial cell. To succeed, you must use four different membrane proteins and make sure that concentration gradients, transport direction, and energy requirements are all correct. The sodium-potassium pump, potassium channel, sodium-glucose symporter, and glucose carrier work together as parts of one interconnected system.

Four tutorial missions introduce the transport processes step by step before the full game challenges you to create the right conditions yourselves. MISSION MEMBRAN turns an abstract process of cell biology into a hands-on cooperative challenge and was designed specifically for upper-secondary biology classes.