In this blog, we proudly present testimonials from Dr Robert Dallmann, Associate Professor at Warwick Medical School, and Pragya Kumari, PhD student from his group, about their real experience and feedback of using our PlateReady™ HepG2 96 Well Plates. 

How long did you store the cells before using them?

Plate 1- one week; Plate 2 and 3 – two weeks

Was the thawing protocol easy to follow, and did you make any changes to the protocol (timing, media, etc.)?

Yes, I used DMEM media supplemented with 10% FBS and 1% PS instead of the EMEM.

Did you check the cells before running the experiments? Did the cells appear healthy and at the advertised level of confluency or cell density?

Yes, I checked the cells after 24 hours of thawing and they looked fine, but density was not confirmed.

What experiment did you run with the cells? 

I ran SRB assay to test cytotoxicity drugs.

Can you quantify any time (user hours or days required to run experiments) and cost savings (media, technician hourly rate, etc.) that the plates enabled?

Yes, using these plates eliminated the need to spend time and effort on preparing the cells such as thawing, counting, ensuring proper growth and viability, and seeding them in 96-well plates. Typically, from thawing of cells, it would take a week to seeding, then considerable hands-on time for seeding, which would be obsolete with this system.

Do you routinely run the same cell-based assays in your lab, and would you switch to assay ready products to run those experiments?

Yes, we use the SRB to screen novel drugs, and have had many dozens of molecules tested in this fashion. Assay ready products would be a great time saver as well as better standardise the cells for the assays. 

What would be the top benefit of using our plated assay ready cells?

Significant reduction in preparation time which allowed to immediately proceed with assay and expectedly lower plate to plate variation due to higher standardisation of cells.

What would be the ideal experiment for your research to have off-the-shelf, assay ready? What would the plate well number and cell line be? Would you just want the cells, or all the components in a validated kit format?

96-well plates, cancer cell lines such as A459, A2780, PC3 or HepG2 and human fibroblasts. The latter (i.e., primary cells) might particularly take full advantage of the strength of this approach.

Would you buy a media kit to make your own assay-ready cells?

Yes, if this would allow to use our own transgenic reporter cell lines. Otherwise, we would prefer to buy pre-plated assay ready cells directly.