Animal Cell Culture and Cryopreservation

Cell culture is a process by which cells are grown under laboratory conditions outside their natural environment. The historical development of methods of cell culture is closely interrelated with tissue and organ culture. Animal cell culture has a long history of over 100 years, although major advancements have been accomplished in the last 30 years. It has become one of the major tools in life sciences. Almost 50 % of the biological products produced today or planned to be produced in the near future are based on animal cell culture. Therefore, there is an increasing interest in developing technologies for cultivation and maintenance of animal cells. Apart from developing new technologies for culturing and manipulating animal cells for producing biologics, researchers are also interested to look into developmental processes using animal cells as a model system. This chapter is designed to serve as a basic introduction to animal cell culture for the students and the laboratory workers who are interested to understand the key concepts and terminologies in this rapidly growing field.