One-touch make-up (for our cells) The cells in the different parts of this video are always the same (grey), but, like actors using make-up to highlight different facial features, they have fluorescent labels that mark different cellular components in different colours: blue shows the nucleus, yellow shows tubulin (a component of the cell's scaffolding), red shows mitochondria, cyan shows the membranes of vesicles called endosomes, and purple shows other membrane structures. Instead of spending hours applying first one colour of make-up -- or fluorescent label -- and then another, EMBL scientists and their collaborators were able to create the equivalent of a make-up brush that is applied only once and highlights different features simultaneously. With the new technique, called MultiLabel, researchers can introduce up to 15 fluorescent markers to a mammalian cell in one go, which could help speed up drug development and screening.