Cell culture or growth media is a liquid or liquid-like gel that supports an artificial environment through cellular growth and correct pH. A vitro cellular report reported that culture media is essential to this cell-cultured technology. It is a way or technique to protect cell cultures by nourishing them with nutrients. It covers cells from insects, animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses. Amino acids, vitamins, carbs, inorganic salts, hormones, and antibiotics are various components of cell culture media. The global cell culture media market size was valued at USD 3,616.8 million in 2021 and is expected to register a CAGR of 12% from 2022 to 2030.
Types of culture media
Natural Media
Natural media are those that come from the removal of tissue or animal bodily fluids like serum, lymph, or plasma. Natural media can be divided into three categories:
- Biological fluids such as serum, plasma, lymph, and amniotic fluid
- Tissue extracts such as liver, tumor, embryo, and bone marrow.
- Clots and coagulants
Synthetic Media
Media that utilizes a range of organic and inorganic substances is synthetic media (also known as artificial media). Among synthetic media are:
- Media with serum: Artificial media that contain added serum
- Media without serum: Serum-free media (SFM) are more consistent than media with serum, enabling scientists to sustain cellular development and proliferation without using the serum.
- Chemically defined media: Chemically defined media include pure organic and inorganic elements and are free of contamination.
- Balanced salt solutions (BSS): Cells are maintained alive with BSS alone. To develop a culture medium that can support cellular growth and proliferation, BSS is loaded with nutrients and other substances. To create a culture medium that can support cellular growth and expansion, BSS is packed with nutrients and other substances. BSS serves as the basis for many kinds of sophisticated media.
Applications of cell culture
One of the most critical cellular and molecular biology tools is cell culture, which offers superior model systems for studying the typical physiology and biochemistry of cells (such as metabolic studies and aging), the effects of drugs and toxic substances on the cells, and mutagenesis and carcinogenesis. Additionally, it is employed in medication discovery, large-scale biological compound synthesis, and drug screening (e.g., vaccines and therapeutic proteins). The main benefit of employing clonal cells in cell culture for any of these applications is the consistency and repeatability of the results that may be obtained.
Covid-19 and influenza are the most outstanding examples of new viruses emerging worldwide. The increasing rate of various types of disease made it essential to produce vaccines. However, cell culture took the opportunity and became a vital and supreme part of the pharmaceutical industry. In the making of vaccines, cell culture techniques were the best standouts.
Maintenance, research, and development of gene therapy cell culture media and other forms are expensive. The equipment and other related products need to be of the highest quality, which takes many costs. So, the increased and colossal investment makes the trait decline towards a negative trait.
Challenges
Cell culture consumes a lot of plastics, which affects mother earth in dangerous ways. This is the major challenge. If you are thinking of recycling? No! There is no option for recycling in the technique. Companies are coming up with new bioprocessing ideas to reduce this challenge. The research and innovations for the same are launching soon and are in the process, stated by various companies.
Impact of COVID-19 on the Market and its Effects
So, a large outbreak was done by covid due to the pandemic—countless deaths and problems faced by the nation forced to launch a vaccine. In the era, cell-cultured vaccines were used to increase the immune system of humans. Companies used cell culture media technology to research and develop the covid vaccinations. It increased the demand for the cell culture media market.
Conclusion
The COVID pandemic aware the public about this market and gave a massive hike to it. Cell culture media markets help the researcher to form and innovate vaccines. There is an increasing demand for cell culture markets. The consumable segment of the market is overriding the equipped ones. There has been an increase in advancements in cell culture technology over the last few decades. It is considered one of the most reliable, robust, and mature technologies for developing bio-therapeutic products.
