FBS, otherwise known as, Fetal Bovine Serum is fetal serum from a calf and is blood that is fractioned and remains once the blood is naturally coagulated and separated from the red blood cells by centrifugation. Fetal bovine serum is a product that is utilized in laboratories for research purposes. It is a blood product which surpasses cell culture testing standards and, therefore, is extensively used to promote growth medium.

First Step in Process

FBS is a dairy industry by-product. Just like the majority of other animal serum utilized in cell culture, Fetal Bovine Serum, is created from blood collected from commercial slaughterhouses. The first step of FBS production is the harvesting of blood from a bovine fetus with the help of a closed and isolated selection system. A cardiac puncture is performed on a calf's fetus during slaughter and the blood is drawn from the bovine fetus after the fetus is removed from cow that has been killed. The blood is refrigerated so that it will clot.

Step 2- Filtration

A process known as centrifuge is then utilized to remove the fibrin clot and the remaining blood cells from the clear yellow (straw) colored serum and, finally, the clear serum is separated from the slotted blood cells. The second step involves filtration which employs a filtration chain with triple sterile 0.1 micrometer membrane filters. After being processed, the sterilized fetal bovine serum is subjected to strict quality control testing by a reputable commercial serum supplier. If the serum clears the quality control testing, it is supplied with a detailed Certificate of Analysis.

Significance of Fetal Bovine Serum

FBS is the most commonly used serum-supplement for the in-vitro cell culture of multi-cell organisms. The reason behind its extensive use is the serum's low level of antibodies and its high content of embryonic growth promoting factors, which helps the serum to develop versatility in various cell culture applications. There are so many fields in which the cell culture medium growth is considered of great importance, like biotechnology, vaccine production, cloning and in-vitro fertilization. FBS when used in proper concentrations can satisfy specific metabolic requirements for the culture of cells and help it grow because of its high content of hormones, carrier proteins and macromolecular proteins. The embryonic stem cells are transferred, by FBS, into the culture medium which leads to growth of the cells.

Moreover, many vaccines available in the market today are produced using FBS for cell culture growth medium. For instance vaccines that protect against viruses utilize fetal bovine serum. Recently, several experiments are being conducted in an attempt to clone animal tissues and within the field of biotechnology; FBS is often employed in these experiments.

You will find that FBS is offered by several manufacturers in the market, and since cell growth in in-vitro is highly sensitive, customers prefer to check specific batches to ascertain for aptness for their specific cell culture under research. Here, at Innovative Research, we make sure that we provide you with only the highest quality fetal bovine serum and other products that you may need for research purposes. We ensure that we price our products affordably, without compromising on quality.

Learn more about Innovative Research and our high quality research materials including human, plant, and animal biological, ELISA & Assay Kits, proteins, antibodies, cell cultures, blood, serum, plasma, and more. More information can be found at https://www.innov-research.com/ or by calling 248.896.0145.