Friday 29 June 2012

Departmental Resesarch Highlighted by BBSRC

The BBRSC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) have today highlighted research performed at Plymouth on their website. The research conducted by Matt Baron in the group of Prof Awadhesh Jha describes the culture of "spheroids" of liver cells from Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). These clusters of cells are a much better model for ecotoxicological studies than the classic cell culture monolayers as they more closely mimic a structured organ. They are also stable in culture for at least a month allowing chronic treatments to be investigated.


Spheroid under EM


'Towards a more representative in vitro method for fish ecotoxicology: morphological and biochemical characterisation of three-dimensional spheroidal hepatocytes' Matthew G. Baron, Wendy M. Purcell, Simon K. Jackson, Stewart F. Owen and Awadhesh N. Jha (2012) Ecotoxicology In Press (full text available from within the University but may need a subscription from outside)