January 25, 2008

So, the cells grew a little too well. There were several dead cells found when we took the plate out to split cells.  On this day, the goal was to make 3 new plates with about 100,000 cells each. To get a rough estimate of how many cells were in the plate, we used a Hemacytometer to count cells.  The cells were also treated with Trypan Blue.  This is a dye that dead cells take in.  We only wanted to count the live cells.

I also made medium.  Our medium contains Pencillin-Streptomycin (to combat the growth of bacteria) and Newborn Calf Serum (contains growth factors that cause the cells to proliferate). These are both placed in DMEM.