I would recommend you seek some initial advice and/or guidance from your lab or collaborating lab, as this question is way to wide to efficiently adress in the current forum.

thank you for letting me know. i don't have a laboratory to consult as I am a student journalist doing research. ^see amendments! 

Hello

it is a good point , there are several research projects working to understand the basic mechanisms of macular degeneration and to develop novel stem cell-based therapies for the diseas . In the univeristy of southern california research team proposes use embryonic stem cells to produce the support cells, or RPE cells, needed to replace those lost in age-related macular degeneration. Because these cells exist in a thin sheet in the back of the eye, they are assembling these sheets in the lab by growing the RPE cells on synthetic scaffolds. These sheets would be surgically implanted into the eye. They plan to complete all pre-clinical testing to gain FDA approval to begin a clinical trial.

Read more about this project and information about this point , visit this link ( https://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-progress/disease-information/macular-degeneration-fact-sheet )

Good Luck

The nutrients are essentially a mixture of organic and inorganic compounds including vitamins, minerals, trace elements and proteins. All of these chemicals/proteins have too many functions to name here but suffice to say they are needed for all aspects of a cells health and maintenance. Historically, proteins from animals were used in the form of serum to provide nutrition and mouse feeder cells were used to provide an extracellular matrix for cell attachment. These animal based products are still used in many labs for convenience and cost but are no longer necessary for routine maintenance of pluripotent stem cells (iPS and ES) cells. Xenofree substitutes for growth medium (e.g. Xenofree Essential 8 medium with human FGF2 and TGFBeta) and cell culture plate surface (synthemax, human vitronectin or laminin) are all suitable replacements that work well and ensure that future clinical grade stem cell products will be animal product free. Hope that helps.

Sophia, that is a really good answer, thank you. I'm not aware of why we can't use human serum however. Why is this?

Dear Charlotte,

animal nutrients are cheap, human or recombinant nutrients are expensive. Thats it. For GMP stem cell production for clinical therapy you need to avoid animal proteins and use human source. Xeno-free media and cultivation environment are essential according to EU Guidelines for GMP. For experiment, we use foetal bovine serum but for clinical grade we need to replace it with human sera or human platelet lysate. See please

Article Properties and growth of human bone marrow mesenchymal strom...

Dear Charlotte,

I would agree with Dr. Tumovcova. Also, American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) has a plethora of information concern various aspects of cell culturing. I would try that source and website first for general information with respect to culturing cells. 

Unfortunately, using animal sera engenders problems that some folks may not realize. Especially those individuals attempting to grow stem cells. Animal sera contains various amounts of inductive factors, progressive factors, stimulatory factors and in some instances inhibitory factors. And, believe it or not, no two lots of serum are ever exactly the same. Therefore it is imperative that when one locates a lot of serum that "works" for their cells that they buy up the entire lot. Therefore, when screening serum for desired activities ask for a sample of serum where they have mega quantities for purchase. One does not want to spend several months testing lots of serum and purchasing just a few bottles only to find no more of that serum available for purchase. Additionally, one trick we learned is that you can store sera at -80C and it will go into a sort of suspended animation state where one does not lose the serum's activity after passing it's expiration date. Losing activity only occurs if one stores their serum at -20C (suggested manufacturers storage temperature), 4C or at ambient temperature. It is also best to aliquot the serum into the amount you will need for any given week. Repeated freeze/thaws of the sera will cause it to lose its activity.

Nutrients are the supplements required for the growth of stem cells. For example feeder cells (mouse embryonic fibroblasts) help in the maintenance pluripotent stem cells. Also, fibroblast growth factor that is available commercially is used. The reason for using animal supplements is the price issue. For any R and D set up, it is OK to  use animal derived products, but one needs to use Xeno free products for all cell therapy applications. Invitrogen (Now Thermo Fisher) supplies a plethora of cell culture supplement which are xeno and animal origin free. For example, instead of serum obtained from bovine origin, one can use knockout serum replacement. Also, for media, Essential 8 media is highly recommended for culturing human pluripotent stem cells.

I hope this information gives you some insight. All the best.