December 2020

Vegetarianism and veganism have become increasingly popular over the last few years, with the number of vegans increasing. In the UK for example, veganism has increased from 150,000 in 2014 to 600,000 in 2019. This is equivalent to about 0.8% of the population. Ten countries have rates of vegetarianism above 10%. The most common reasons people chose to undertake a dietary change relate to both the environmental impact of animal agriculture and, of course, animal welfare. With this in mind, could lab=grown meat provide a more ethical way for people to include meat products in their diet?

Anyone working in stem cell culture is painfully aware of the short half-lives of growth factors. These very expensive little proteins rapidly degrade which means time and money spent replacing them. But the ephemeral nature of growth factors is critical to their functionality

Matrigel and similar products such as Geltrex, have become essential reagents for 3D cell culture. Matrigel contains a mixture of major basement-membrane extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins (e.g. laminin, collagen IV, entactin and the heparin sulphate proteoglycan perlecan). It is also packed with growth factors and many enzymes. As such, it provides an ideal structural and biological environment for culturing cells and is used in a myriad of applications in many formats.

This year's UK annual extracellular vesicle meeting is being held virtually and CellGS will be presenting its latest offering for exosome research, the Exo-spinâ„¢ 96 kit.