A surprising history of cell culture media and the use of insulin, outlining the basic developments behind growing mammalian cells.

It will take you on a journey from the late 1800 where organ tissues were kept in balanced salt solutions -BSS- and later PBS, until the early 50’s synthetic media, over chick embryo extract and Eagle’s Minimal Essential Medium (MEM) or its modification by Dulbecco (DMEM). Finally describing insulin mimicking growth factors.