Question: What do you feed the growing cells with?

Jennifer Paxton answered on 13 Mar 2013:

Great question! The food we give them is called cell culture medium which is a collection of sugars and salts and things that give the cells the energy that is needed for growth. We also add something called serum which is taken from animal blood and has special chemicals called growth factors in it. The growth factors do exactly as they say – help the cells to grow! Most people will also add antibiotics to their media too, to stop bacteria growing the the cultures (bacteria love to grow in places that are moist and warm, so the incubator that we grow the cells in is at a toasty 37 degrees and perfect for bugs to grow!)
Sometimes you need to add other chemicals depending on your cell type, but I don’t need anything else too special for the ones that I grow.
People often notice that the cell culture media is red/pink in colour. This is because another chemical is added that changes with pH. This is really helpful cause we can then see if there are any problems with the cells and if they are too acidic (pH less than 7) cos the media goes orangey or alkaline (more than 7) cos the media goes dark red . Cells only really like being at pH 7, or neutral which is how they are in the body!