Initiation of Cell Lines

A wide array of established techniques is used to prepare primary cultures and to derive serially subcultured cell lines from them.

Cell Propagation

Established cell lines are routinely obtained from a variety of sources and passaged in culture.

Mouse Embryonic Stem (ES) Cell Culture

The facility provides technical support, cells, reagents and supplies for culturing mouse ES cells, and performs transfections and cloning to establish germline transmissible modified mouse ES cells to create knockout or knock-in mice.

Hybridoma Fusions and Antibody Production

The facility can produce hybridoma fusions, clone antibody-producing hybridomas, generate high titer monoclonal antibody (mAb)-containing culture supernatants, and bank hybridomas.

EBV Transformation

Immortalized B cells can be generated from human peripheral blood samples by transformation with Epstein Barr Virus (EBV).

Mycoplasma Screening

Mycoplasma infestations of mammalian cell cultures can be detected by transferring their medium to indicator cultures of Vero monkey kidney cells and detecting mycoplasma DNA by fluorescence microscopy.

Preparation of Sterile Growth Media and Reagents

The CCF is a cost-effective resource for the preparation of complex media as well as more common media.

Performance Testing of Fetal Bovine Serum

By testing and purchasing an optimal fetal bovine serum (FBS) batch, investigators have access to a consistent, quality-assured supply of FBS at the most cost‑effective price.

Frozen Storage of Viable Cells (cell banking)

Viable cell samples are stored under liquid nitrogen (‑196°C) in cryofreezers with a total capacity of approximately 123,000 samples.

Cell Validation Support

The facility supports Fox Chase researchers by providing a wide array of common stock cell lines that were obtained directly from approved sources and by validation testing of standard cell lines through STR marker profiling by IDEXX BioResearch.

Immortalization of Mouse Embryo Fibroblasts

The facility immortalizes mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEF) by transfection with a vector encoding the simian virus large T antigen (SV40 TAg) oncoprotein to promote transformation.

Irradiated MEFs and 3T3-J2 Cells

Irradiated MEFs and 3T3-J2 are available to serve as feeder layers for ES and primary cell lines, respectively.