A bizarre way of protecting cell cultures from contamination

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Alexis Carrel's quest for media attention

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A bizarre way of protecting cell cultures from contamination

Leonard Hayflick Scientist

	Views	Duration
81. Why a cell culture would fail	71	03:25
82. Subcultivation of fibroblast cells	60	01:44
83. A surprising observation: older cell cultures stop growing	69	03:16
84. Determining cell karyology	44	01:59
85. What's causing the cessation of mitotic activity in cells?	51	02:01
86. Differences in cell division between male and female cells	72	03:18
87. The results of the 'dirty old man' experiment	78	02:31
88. Alexis Carrel's claim that cells are immortal	88	06:46
89. A bizarre way of protecting cell cultures from contamination	63	01:24
90. Alexis Carrel's quest for media attention	64	03:42

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His work in cell culture began in about 1910 or 11 and it was about that time that he initiated this culture from a chick heart... embryonic chick heart cells and he was... he believed, strangely enough... and because this was a very serious problem in cell culture until the antibiotic era, the problem being the frequent contamination of cell culture with bacteria from the atmosphere. As you worked on the cultures, you had to open and close vessels, bottles, and frequently bacteria would fall in, contaminate the culture and your experiment was finished, so major efforts were made, prior to the antibiotic era, to prevent this from happening. All kinds of procedures were conducted. Carrel felt that everything had to be painted black in order to reduce the likelihood of contamination. Not only the rooms themselves, floors, ceilings and walls, but also the workers themselves, who were gowned from head to foot in black attire looking like Ku Klux Klan figures roaming about this large laboratory facility.

Leonard Hayflick (b. 1928), the recipient of several research prizes and awards, including the 1991 Sandoz Prize for Gerontological Research, is known for his research in cell biology, virus vaccine development, and mycoplasmology. He also has studied the ageing process for more than thirty years. Hayflick is known for discovering that human cells divide for a limited number of times in vitro (refuting the contention by Alexis Carrel that normal body cells are immortal), which is known as the Hayflick limit, as well as developing the first normal human diploid cell strains for studies on human ageing and for research use throughout the world. He also made the first oral polio vaccine produced in a continuously propogated cell strain - work which contributed to significant virus vaccine development.

Title: A bizarre way of protecting cell cultures from contamination

Listeners: Christopher Sykes

Christopher Sykes is a London-based television producer and director who has made a number of documentary films for BBC TV, Channel 4 and PBS.

Tags: Alexis Carrel

Duration: 1 minute, 24 seconds

Date story recorded: July 2011

Date story went live: 08 August 2012