FBS-Based Media — Is It Time to Transition Between Traditions?

If you don’t stick with “tradition” in regards to cell culture, how can you reliably predict their quality in future clinical trials where safety and efficacy is at stake? ne “tradition” that has worked well enough for 65+ years is fetal bovine serum (FBS). This ubiquitous reagent—a by-product of the meat industry—is the basis for 600 to 800 thousand liters of yearly media supplementation across life sciences including diagnostics, biotech research, protein biologics manufacture, cloning, stem cell research, and vaccine production.

Are there signs that regenerative medicine can less afford FBS as high-quality sources become scarcer? Can “cultivators” of hMSCs and other cells transition to a new, future-facing “tradition” and maintain or exceed previously optimized quality attributes? You can probably guess that the answer to both these questions is yes. Here in this blog, we’ll show you why.