Home▸Medical Technology & Imaging Physics▸Erythropoietin and the Oxygen-Sensing HIF Pathway

🩸 Erythropoietin and the Oxygen-Sensing HIF Pathway

Explore how the kidney senses falling blood oxygen through the HIF transcription factor system and releases erythropoietin to command the bone marrow to make more red blood cells.

Medical Technology & Imaging Physics3DModerate60 FPS

The simulation shows how falling tissue oxygen stabilizes HIF in kidney sensing cells, drives a rise in erythropoietin release, and triggers new red blood cell production that gradually restores oxygen delivery and shuts the signal back off.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Adjust the ambient or blood oxygen level and watch HIF accumulation, erythropoietin secretion, and bone marrow red blood cell output respond and interact in real time across a simulated multi-day timeline.

💡 Did You Know?

The enzymes that tag HIF for destruction use oxygen directly as a chemical reactant, meaning the cell's oxygen sensor is not a separate detector molecule but the very chemistry of an enzyme running out of its own ingredient.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore how the kidney senses low blood oxygen via the HIF pathway and releases erythropoietin to stimulate red blood cell production.

erythropoietinhifoxygen-sensinghypoxiakidney-physiologyhematopoiesisaltitude-adaptationendocrinology

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install