Cell Culture Facts -- (A Cell's Perspective)

a)  Feed me, Feed me!
b) Let me show you how the wonders of biology work. *grins*
c) Check on me or i have all sorts of ways of imploding. Try me!
d) Am not responsible for the actions of your chucky friends!
e) You want the weekends off? Seriously? Work at a bank.
f) I need proteins, growth factors, antibiotics and i need it every other
   day. Insistent?, point (a) \m/.
g) I wish i dont breathe the air you breathe, you know for your sake.
h) You’re my bitch, contrary to what you may think.
i)  Freeze me down, Thaw me up.. I dont mind the cold but just so you know i
    got my own watch and i work on my own time.
j) Great work today! tomorrow's a new day, for a reason.
k) Patience is a virtue, you'll learn. 

:D

Cell culture is often quite the subject of a lighthearted, a little paranoia inflicted obsessively bothered about it banter for labs that do work with it. I've been working with cells for a while now and the things you can do with it (yes respecting it the whole time) or to it as a matter of fact can get very pretty interesting. The domino effect that's triggered by that one unhappy cell can lead to quite a mass full of floating, stunted, ready for the bio-hazard bin debris, something you would want to avoid. If you're not good at planning a vacation say 4-5 months in advance, well your cells will make sure you do so next time. Think you can chip in some extra sleep over weekends, wake up with the morning sun way bygone, think again! You'll only wake up to realize that you're in the graduate student lounge with your timer beeping into oblivion. So work good, work on time and let the cells do their jazz.

Cell, the Jock!

It will be baffling, absolutely insane if I told you the story of the cell and the make-up of it, the miniscule crap that resides in and how! To blow your mind here’s a situation. Every cell in your body except for the sex ones have your entire DNA set. Count RBCs out too, they don’t contain DNA at all. But all that filtering leaves the total cell count approximately at 100000000000000, ten trillion!!! And with each cell having the entire genome set it would take a person typing 60 words a minute, 8 hours a day, around 50 years to type the whole genome. And this is just the DNA am talking about, then there are the proteins that are basically responsible for anything that you do or are and other millions of factors and messengers of which if I start talking ill end up like the person typing the human genome which trust me I dont want to.
But to find a defect in the 3 billion bases that is the human genome and to go correct it is what makes us the coolest people in the world. True Story!

To talk about the cell am sure you have heard this before? It’s the building block of life. Yes? Oh shut up!!

If it was that simple, I would own Manchester United and have a crocodile farm with Halle Berry for my girlfriend.

So yes don’t kid yourself. You want to know what it really is, try this. It’s the oxygen you take in, it’s the hydrogen you fart out, it’s the burn in your pee, it’s the taste of pizza, it’s the smell of petrol, it’s the response to a speeding car, it’s the crackling of your knuckles, it’s the pleasure when you kiss, it’s the fit when you’re ill, it’s the sound of symphony, it’s the bones you crack, it’s the healing of a cut, it’s the sense of sensing, it’s the tears when someone dies, it’s the reason why you think, its why you forget, it’s the baby in the uterus, it’s the blue eyes of your neighbor, it’s the paunch of your buddy, it’s the color of the race, its food for disease, its why the young get old, its why the old pass away, it’s the onion in your eyes, its why Pfizer is so rich, its why my PI needs money, it’s the high when you’re high, its why you salivate, it’s what makes plants green, it’s why animals aint human, its why man needs a woman, it’s what results out their needs, it’s what turns food to poop, and poop to soil, it’s how criminals are caught, it’s how monkeys are cloned, its why journals are a pain, it’s the beating of your heart, it’s how your liver regenerates, it’s the fat on your belly, it’s the muscle in your arms, it’s how mice and humans are similar, quite simply it’s the micro fuel of life.

Oh and yes,

Its why biologists are screwed!

Origins of Biology, Origins of Research.

Most concepts in biology have roots that are well accounted for. Some others are open to pure moot and dispute. Game to a history of scientific genius coupled with quite a few eccentric theories, I believe biology has come a long way today from residing in ampoules to being able to produce functional neurons in laboratory cultures.

The basis of life and research is extrapolated from the very first microbial plaques found in the teeth of Leeuwenhoek (yes his teeth, wonder why scientists are messy?) described in his words as "a little white matter, which is as thick as if 'twere batter" to the deduction of the spiral molecule that haunts every freshman till they are unwittingly aware of the molecular conundrum that is the DNA.

It was 1953 when Science gave birth to cell research and plagiarism, ironically in the same cradle in one of history's most celebrated excogitations so to say. It took the DNAmic duo of Watson-Crick the "Photo 51" from the what could have been the biggest contribution to life science X-Ray photos of Franklin (hers, literally) to affirm their claim of the DNA structure composition. Pretty convenient eh! To top it off, Franklin's dumb ass luck - dead of cancer in her thirties couldn’t receive a Nobel because apparently Stockholm has a problem awarding accolades posthumously.

Genetics. Dont we all just love this term. Probably one of biology’s fanciest ones sought out for by young and budding lab geeks (ask a class of 50 freshmen biologists what their chosen area of interest is and be baffled, or not!). Lest they know, it took Mendel over 25000 pea samples, a tawdry 3 citings in next 35 years, his conversion to an abbot (i don’t blame him) and a final 20th century what could be termed as a PEAn reconsideration of his work for his research to be finally extolled. It was soon in the textbooks, in our notes, quite a pioneering chapter in befuddling and flummoxing generations one after another. Outcome, dominantly recessive and how!.

Sex cells! Well it was FLAW's flawless concept! (no kidding, go ogle it). 20 generations of mice were experimented on, around a 1000 tails chopped (these tiny bitches always had it coming, always!).

A-bio-genesis! Quite a self explanatory term isnt it. Well Aristotle believed so! Life generated on its own, rotten logs turned into crocodiles. From a scientific point of view i think its safe to say, philosophy got the better of the polymath. It was only when Louis Pasteured onto greener grounds that we found out that the only thing that can grow spontaneously was a disease infected with microbial pathogens, Germ Theory, period!

Evolution, oh the monkey business one's seen become of that concept! Darwin proposed a theory. Honestly its quite a fascinating one, in theory alright! Thomas Huxley extended it to apes and humans and since then history has seen many a human one ape many an ape one. Quite frankly, if humans did share common ancestry with the monkey boys it would so explain the etymology of the word ape (to copy, really!).


More on how biology bends everyday rules, watch this space. 

The Iota of Biota

If I say biology and the only thing that comes to your head is your eight grade lesson on sex organs and reproduction then go ahead, Read. If you are obsessively compulsive about the advent of a bacterial armageddon and the rise of the fruit flies, then go ahead Read. If you believe we shouldn’t sacrifice (word foreplay in biology :D) mice and are all tailed up to organize an animal rights campaign, go ahead sue us but first Read! If you believe Spiderman mutations is fictional crap, go ahead Read. If you think we cannot generate your heart from your skin, go ahead Read! If you love Science, Read.