Co-culture systems and technologies: taking synthetic biology to the next level

Co-culture techniques find myriad applications in biology for studying natural or synthetic interactions between cell populations. Such techniques are of great importance in synthetic biology, as multi-species cell consortia and other natural or synthetic ecology systems are widely seen to hold enormous potential for foundational research as well as novel industrial, medical and environmental applications with many proof-of-principle studies in recent years. What is needed for co-cultures to fulfil their potential? Cell–cell interactions in co-cultures are strongly influenced by the extracellular environment, which is determined by the experimental set-up, which therefore needs to be given careful…

• RC
  Research Councils UK
• IC
  Imperial College London
• EA
  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

  Awards: EP/K038648/1, EP/G036004/1
• BA
  Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council