Week 2

Day 6: Splitting Cells!

 I was very excited for what this week had in store for me! After being exposed to a substantial amount of western blotting the previous week, I was very excited to understand the principles of cell culture and how scientists utilise cell lines as part of their research.

When entering the room where visualising and examining cells takes place, the importance of maintaining a sterile environment became apparent to me. We had to change our lab coats and obtain new gloves which needed to be sprayed with 70% ethanol.

Obtaining the cells:
The cells that we used needed to be stored in liquid nitrogen as they were an immortal neuronal cell line (C. 17) from mice. Thus, keeping them in liquid nitrogen is a cryogenic method in which its life cycle is frozen in time and can only proceed once it has been defrosted. Here is a photo of my supervisor obtaining the cells from their box. It looked pretty dramatic!

 Once we defrosted the cells, we carefully poured them in a flask containing media and incubated them so we could view and split them the next day...


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