Maths skills The body contains approximately 50 trillion cells. Our DNA contains about 24,000 genes, separated by long strands of non-coding DNA. There are about three billion DNA base pairs in a human genome. with such large orders of magnitude standard form is commonly used. 1 million 1 billion 1 trillion 1. Express 50 trillion cells in standard form. 1 000 000 1 000 000 000 1 000 000 000 000 Six powers of ten Nine powers of ten Tweleve powers of ten 1 x 106 1 x 10° 1x 1012 50 trillion = 50 trillion cells is just an estimate - it's difficult to know exactly how many cells we contain, and this number will vary between people.