Question: How did you make the cells grow?

Claire Shooter answered on 18 Jun 2014:

You grow different types of cells in slightly different ways. To make them grow correctly, you have to mimic the conditions they would grow under in the human body as closely as possible. We normally grow cells in flat plastic dishes – the cells stick to the bottom of the dish and grow in a fine layer across it. The dish is put in an incubator at 37 degrees Celsius – the average temperature of the inside of your body. The incubator itself is rigged up to air canisters which keep the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide inside the incubator the same as inside the body.

The cells also need to be fed and watered, so we cover them in a liquid that’s a bit like meaty lucozade – full of salts and sugars the cell needs (I know people who have tried drinking it, but I wouldn’t recommend it!).

Depending on what experiments we do, we sometimes add antibiotics to the dish to stop it getting contaminated with bacteria, or other things like serum, which contain a mix of hormones and proteins that cells like.

The liquid is replaced every so often with fresh stuff as the cells use up all the nutrients and secrete waste products into it. If all the conditions are correct and the cells are happy, they start to divide. When the dish gets crowded you remove all the cells and divide them between two or three separate dishes, and start the process again. In this way you grow lots and lots of cells to do different experiments on