Cell & Tissue Culture

Cell culture today presents a subtle paradox. Coaxing cells to produce biopharmaceuticals, vitamins, and industrial products requires inserting foreign genes and adapting cells to artificial growth conditions.

The vast majority of the thousands of chemicals in our homes and workplaces have not been tested to determine if they cause cancer. That’s because today’s options are lacking. Rodent tests are too slow, and cell culture tests don’t replicate how cells interact in the body, so their relevance to cancer is limited. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have set out to change that.

A new study led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the University of California (UC), San Diego School of Medicine shows that certain stem cell culture methods are associated with increased DNA mutations. The study points researchers toward safer and more robust methods of growing stem cells to treat disease and injury.














