Cell lines were nothing new in 1961, when a young medical student called George Todaro joined Howard Green's New York University laboratory to work for a single semester. Ten years earlier George Gey had isolated cervical carcinoma cells from Henrietta Lacks and turned them into the HeLa cell line. But this and subsequent cell lines made from noncancer cell types were transformed—they did not show contact inhibition in vitro and they caused tumors when injected in vivo. “These lines were not evolved according to any protocol that would ensure defined properties,” says Green.
3T3 cells were established after a temporary dip in reproductive ability (top); once established they entered a resting state at a low cell density (bottom).
GREEN
The Rockefeller University Press
2005
The Rockefeller University Press
2005
You do not currently have access to this content.
