how do I generate a growth curve? - (Apr/14/2009 )

I call myself a scientist but I have no idea how to generate a growth curve of my cells in culture (and I am too embarrassed to ask the PhD students I work with for fear of being ridiculed).

Can anyone give me some pointers and save me from an embarrassing conversation?

Cheers

hmmm...if you are afraid to ask questions, this will impact your career in science in a poor way, I am thinking!

it's simply a measurement of growth over time. usually you would plot cell# or OD or Klett reading, any sort of quantification, on the y-axis; often log scale is useful here. on the x-axis, plot time.

depending on what you are growing, you will need to take lots of timepoints to get an accurate curve. this can also be different for different cells in different media; it's appropriate to express your results in these terms

good luck! the more data points you have, the better; it will result in a smoother curve

Like Aimkinks said: you need to count the cells at certain time-intervals and plot it out on a graph.

The following links may be helpfull:

link1
link2
link3
link4
how are you going to count te cells ? If you use alamar blue by example you can simply use the manual that you can order or get with the product , it explains how you need to do so.

Thanks for the pointers - much appreciated...

aimikins on Apr 14 2009, 11:03 AM said:

I think my Australian sarcasm may not translate when written! It was a bit tongue-in-cheek

Nay on Apr 14 2009, 11:59 AM said:

hello dr

oops...dont get embarassed...........i think that always happen everywhere
nyways ,i ll be gr8ful if my ans can be of some help to you
why dont you try graphpad prism for growth curve analysis
cheers

Hi Guys,
I am also a newbie to cell culture, and i am wondering why do we really need a growth curve?
Any answer is much appreciated
Cheers

Adeel Masood Butt (PharmD)

Adeel Masood Butt on Mon Mar 19 07:49:51 2012 said:

It's good to know how is your cells growing. For example, if study proteomics, some protein may have high/low regulation at log phase for instance. If you know the cell nature, it will be easy for you to plan your experiment. I think ...