Question: How do you grow a cell?

Sian Richardson answered on 6 Mar 2018:

I grow bacteria cells called E.coli. I grow up a small culture first using a flask containing about 50 ml of media. This is placed in a shaking incubator were I can control the temperature and stirring. This is what we call a starter culture used to seed a larger vessel called a bioreactor. This vessel is 5L in size. I can control more factors in a bioreactor like temperature, pH, air flow, dissolved oxygen, cell number, stirring. E.coli cells double every 20 mins so we get high density cultures very quickly so they need to be monitored closely