GoingToMeet

Culturing mammalian cells in the laboratory enables biotechnologists to investigate the activity of cells, model and evaluate biological pathways, test drugs and allow the development of new therapeutic approaches.

Such technology is used worldwide in academic institutions and in the healthcare, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Furthermore, the use of cell culture techniques are predicted to increase as biotechnologists look to develop new ways of using cells in the laboratory and reduce the numbers of animals used in research. Accordingly, the market potential for cell culture technology is enormous and is recognized as a billion dollar industry (Global Industry Analysts Report, 2006).

Cell cultures are used for a broad variety of applications and such technology has given rise to many important findings over the years. However, it must be recognised that when cells are grown outside the body they are exposed to different environmental pressures that influence their structure and ability to function.

Recreation of the in vivo environment in a Petri dish, multi-well plate or culture flask is therefore critical to ensure that cultured cells behave in a manner representative of their counterparts in vivo.

The purpose of this meeting is to review some of the new enabling technologies available to help overcome some of the limitations of cell culture. This includes the development of new products and protocols to improve the technique of growing cells in the tissue culture laboratory.

Dr Stefan Przyborski, Reader in Stem Cell Biology, Durham University and Director and Chief Scientific Officer of ReInnervate Limited (Meeting Chair)

The deadline for abstract submissions is February 10th 2007
Abstract guidelines can be found at http://www.euroscicon.com/absguidlines.html

The deadline for early registration is February 20th 2008