Cell and tissue culture: from basic principles to advanced technologies

Cell and tissue culture are widespread techniques and one of the most important tools in cellular and molecular biology. In the research lab routine they offer flexible and reproducible model systems to study normal biochemistry and physiology of cells, effect of drugsand toxicants, mutagenesis, carcinogenesis. They also can be scaled up for R&D applications such as drug screening and development, and for manufacturing of biological compounds, as vaccines. Although apparently simple, the approach to cell culture needs to be cautious and accurate in order to avoid common mistakes in generation and maintenance of cell lines that are one of the most common sources of variability, impinging on reproducibility of the results over time and in different labs.
Starting from basic approaches and considerations, this course aims at providing the theoretical and practical skills needed for designing cell culture and tissue culture-based experiments. A strong focus is then provided on the technologies available for manipulating the gene expression of cultured cells and how to integrate this approach into a research project.