Cell Culture Media

ScienCell’s wide assortment of cell culture media is in liquid form and includes Specialty, Classical & Supplement varieties. Each product is designed for optimal nutrition and growth of primary cells. ScienCell’s cell culture media is manufactured and tested to ensure a high standard of quality and consistency.

Each specialty medium is paired with cell-specific growth supplements for optimal growth and survival. Complete media kits include basal media, growth supplement, penicillin/streptomycin and fetal bovine serum (if applicable).

When working with primary cells, it is important to remember that they are not cell lines and should be treated with care. At ScienCell, we specialize in primary cell culture and we are very familiar with the common problems researchers encounter when culturing them. We have compiled a list with 13 of the most common problems that researchers encounter when culturing primary cells.

Primary cells, which are isolated directly from tissue, show normal cell morphology and
maintain many of the important markers and functions seen in vivo. Primary cells, though, have a finite lifespan and limited expansion capacity, so it is critical to use low passage primary cells for your research.

Remember that primary cells are never 100% pure, so if cells at higher passage are used there is greater risk of having contaminating cells outgrow the cells of interest. With each passage,  phenotypic and genotypic changes occur as the cells diverge from the original isolated cell population. Additionally, these genetic changes can lead to epigenetic changes. We, therefore, strongly encourage you to use primary cells as early as possible for experiments to prevent genetic drift. Although some primary cell types, such as fibroblasts, can be extremely proliferative and can be passaged many

Cancer is a collection of over 200 diseases where the only common denominator is rogue cells^1,2.  The ways in which a cell can go rogue is so varied that cancer has its own separate biology where order and normalcy are not readily apparent.  Cancer does not even have to be solid.  Indeed, blood cancers like leukemia and lymphomas account for about 10% of new cancer diagnoses in the US³.  Our understanding of cancer is continually being refined, and in preparation for our visit to the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference, this blog post will give a brief overview of human history with cancer, highlight some accomplishments in cancer research, and discuss two future directions for cancer therapy research.

Fossilized bones and mummies of ancient Egypt provide some of the earliest evidence of cancer, and the first recorded description of cancer dates back to circa 3000 BC characterizing breast tumors as a disease for which “there is no treatment⁵.”

After watching displays of astounding athletic prowess in the 2016 Olympics, I was inspired to take a closer look at the science behind exercise training, recovery, and injury with a focus on the importance of blood vessels during exercise.

Let’s start with some basic training: Why are blood vessels important for exercise?

Muscles need oxygen and nutrients to breakdown fats and carbohydrates for energy and the main delivery system to provide these is blood vessels.  Under normal conditions, a delicate balance is kept between quiescence and remodeling in blood vasculature to maintain a baseline level of muscle activity, but that balance is upset with physical stress such as exercising due to an increased demand for energy and the components required to make that energy.  The “angiogenic switch” is a popular term for the point at which blood vessels change from a quiescent state to an active remodeling state, such as in tumorigenesis [1].  Chemical regulation of angiogenesis is well-researched

Choosing which media to use with your primary cells can be daunting. Whether you are replicating a formula from a publication, optimizing your own supplemented classical or nutrient media, or purchasing commercially available specialty media, it is important to understand how this choice will affect your primary cultures, and subsequently your research.

Many researchers working with cell lines commonly use classical and nutrient media, which is sufficient for cell line culture. Primary cells, however, often require additional nutrients for good performance. It is important to remember the difference between cell lines and primary cells, and how these differences affect nutritional requirements. Cell lines are typically very proliferative, are well-adapted to 2-dimensional culture, and tend to be more resilient to culture conditions. Conversely, normal primary cells are taken from their 3-dimensional host tissue and transferred to 2-dimensional culture, are less proliferative than cell lines,

For decades, researchers have been culturing cells to study normal and diseased biological processes. Many of these studies use immortalized cell lines which proliferate indefinitely in culture. Immortalized cells thrive in classical media formulated with the minimum requirements for cell growth, including salts, vitamins, amino acids and an energy source. Though useful for some studies, many scientists question how closely immortalized cells resemble primary cells isolated from living tissue. As a result, scientists are shifting to utilizing primary cells for their research as primary cells are more representative of in vivo conditions.

Primary cells are cultured directly from tissue, express protein markers specific to their cell type, and have a limited ability to proliferate. For many primary cells, classical media is not sufficient to support their growth in vitro and consequently require specialized media. Specialty media contains similar classical media elements, but with additional