Abinaya Lakshmi

Cell Culture and Its Applications Abinaya Lakshmi

Cell forms the structural and functional unit of living life. The genetic material of cell is composed of 100 trillion cells that holds the secret to inherited diseases and other complex diseases. Cell culture is one of the major tools used in cellular and molecular biology, providing excellent model systems for studying the normal physiology and biochemistry of cells. Tissue culture was first developed in the early 1900's, a method for studying the behavior of cells. Cell culture is the process by which cells are grown under controlled artificial conditions with proper nutritional supply provided. But now cell culture technique plays an important role in research and development of drug discovery, Cancer Research, Genetic engineering, virology and Gene therapy. These achievements aids in improving the health and quality of life of patients suffering from dangerous diseases like cancer, genetic disorders. The major advantage of using cell culture for any of these applications is the consistency and reproducibility of results that can be obtained from using a batch of clonal cells. Moreover, a range of bio- therapeutics are currently synthesized using cell culture methods.