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  • Why say NO to foetal calf serum?
  • Advantages of serum-free media
  • List of suppliers of serum-free media

Advantages of serum-free media

Why use serum-free media?
There is a large number of serum-free nutrient media on the market and there are other reasons besides the animal ethical for using them:

They are more reliable
There is certainty about the content of a defined, serum-free nutrient medium. Chemically manufactures substances are uniform. Health authorities set ever stricter requirements for safety, and serum-free nutrient media can be used without risk.

They are cheaper
Serum-free media are cheaper in the long term. Outbreaks of foot and mouth disease can push the price of foetal calf serum even higher. Although foetal calf serum is a supplement and only represents about 5-15% the total nutrient medium, it is estimated that foetal calf serum represents between 55% and 70% of a given nutrient medium. Researchers have estimated that going over to serum-free alternatives gives a cost-saving of 80%.

What do I do?
It has become easy to find the nutrient medium which best suits your research and your cell lines. Here you can find a list of suppliers of serum-free nutrient media. They will tell you whether they supply a nutrient medium which is appropriate for research and cell line, or whether they can generate a tailor-made one specially.

Using other types of animal serum is not progress – for either animal welfare or science.

 

Godcellekultur.dk aims to provide information on the nutrient medium foetal calf serum , and why the researcher should replace the product with a chemically defined nutrient medium. We hope you will read through the individual section and find that there are obvious animal ethical and scientific reasons to move away from foetal calf serum (FBS – Foetal Bovine Serum or FCS – Fetal Calf Serum).
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