• Question: what is the most difficult cell to grow?

    Asked by x Miss Sugg x to Christie on 15 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Christie Waddington

      Christie Waddington answered on 15 Jun 2016:

      I am quite fortunate in that I work with quite easy cells which are routinely used in research laboratories: HeLa cells (cervical cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks), HEK293 (human embryonic kidney cells), U2OS (bone cancer cells) and 143B (another bone cancer cell line).

      The hardest ones to grow that I also use are patient skin cells (fibroblasts). If there are cells with a particular bad mutation, they will find it hard to grow and you have to look after them a lot by making sure they have lots of glucose as their energy source and other growth nutrients.

      One of my friends is working with stem cells and is trying to convert them to neurons using special growth factors which act as signals to tell the stem cell to become a neuron. Sometimes they work, and other times they don’t!

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