It started Monday 13 September with international despatch from Wisconsin USA of 8 vials of human heart cells – 40 million cells in all. By Wednesday they’d reached the FedEx depot at Matraville in Sydney’s south east. But they were stuck in Customs. On Friday nothing had changed – except most likely the dry ice […]

Don’t hold us to this, but…. In cultivation of heart tissue three types of cells are needed : Muscle cells Blood vessel cells Extracellular matrix – macromolecules that provide support to the cells including communication and adhesion  (collagen, enzymes, other things in a 3d network)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracellular_matrix These need to be in a certain ratio in […]

This morning we had an introduction to one of the labs– bio-printers, freezers, incubators etc with Dr. Carmine Gentile.  

Cell Cultivation Art Artist Cynthia Verspaget, back in  2004 created the Anarchy Cell Line (TAnCL). This is a line of cells based on Cynthia’s own blood and HeLa cells. HeLa cells are commonly purchased for experimentation and used in labs, their originary cells were taken without consent from African American Henrietta Lacks in the 1950s. […]