This time let’s do it!
At the St. Louis meeting, a topic which relates to the very essence of SIVB member expertise was informally addressed. The topic to which I refer is availability and easy access to reliable methodologies for cell culture for researchers. A past source for this kind of information seems to have been the Journal of Tissue Culture Methods (JTCM) with Dr. Warren Schaeffer serving as the TCA connection (I am currently seeking more information about this – anyone having such please contact me). Thus this is not a new discussion topic as the JTCM apparently was a means for members to contribute methodologies at one time and the possibility of a specific TCA/SIVB publication has been considered previously but did not materialize. What is being proposed is the application of our broad member expertise to produce a collection of carefully reviewed, reliable, well presented, well defined and reproducible protocols for the culturing of all tissue types, a critical source of information that up to the present day does not appear to exist in a user friendly, readily available format. I believe the members of the SIVB are the best source of this kind of “how to” and would request that we all give thought to sharing that expertise in a way to benefit not only each other but all researchers. This could be done through the SIVB website which would permit ease of access and updating. For this to succeed manuscripts will have to be prepared, reviewers sought, format(s) determined, what disciplines to be addressed and what # of protocols should be posted initially, the posting process itself etc.
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Submitted by Barbara Doonan
