Tissue Culture Service

Welcome to the Tissue Culture Service.

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Effie Karavitis - supervisor at the Tissue Culture Service.

The laboratory is a core facility of the Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology and is located in Room E606 on Level 6, East Wing of the Medical Building.

Reno-Medullary Interstitial Cell moving through an insert - Scanning Electron Microscopy. Image by Dr Christine Maric.

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History

The current facility was established in May, 1995 with the generous assistance of The William Buckland Foundation and The Ian Potter Foundation.

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Background

Tissue Culture includes organ and cell culture. Organ culture is the culture of undisaggregated tissue. Cell culture refers to cultures derived from dispersed cells.

In animal tissue culture the material may be derived from various sources including insects, amphibians and mammals. The Anatomy and Cell Biology Tissue Culture Laboratory is equipped to grow mammalian cells.

3T3 Cells in culture - inverted phase contrast microscopy.

Mouse embryonic stem cells - inverted phase contrast microscopy.

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The Laboratory

Our aim is to maintain the Tissue Culture Facility to the highest standards and to teach and assist students and researchers both from within our department and from external locations.

The services which we provide to other departments of the University of Melbourne and other institutions include training, providing growing flasks of specific cell types, routine cell culture maintenance and the use of our facility including the incubators and all associated equipment.

The main laboratory is equipped with two laminar flow cabinets and a Class II biohazard cabinet. The air quality is equal in sterility to a standard operating theatre.

The adjacent room has a double sized laminar flow cabinet allowing two people to work side by side. This is crucial when attempting to isolate tissue from an animal as quickly as possible.

The facility houses up-to-date equipment including a Zeiss inverted phase contrast microscope, three infra-red CO2 sensor incubators, a water purifying system, centrifuges and autoclaves.