Cell Culture Media

Gibco Cell Culture Media for healthy mammalian cell cultures

Cell culture medium is vital to your culture environment as it provides components (e.g., nutrients, growth factors) necessary to support cell growth and function. In addition, media can be formulated to regulate environmental conditions in cell culture, including osmotic pressure and pH. A variety of cell culture media formulations have been developed to support a wide range of cell types and experimental applications.

Time-tested and trusted, our Gibco cell culture media line includes products designed to support the growth and maintenance of a variety of mammalian cells and cell lines. We offer ready-to-use cell culture media as well as powdered and concentrated liquid formulations to fit your experimental setup and budget.For your scale-up needs, Gibco Cell Culture for Bioprocessing provides end-to-end products, process development and customization services to help maximize productivity while reducing costs and time to market.

Learn how Gibco Media are the most cited media in global scientific journals

Gibco cell culture media are a reliable solution, designed to deliver reproducibility and performance, for results you can count on.

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DMEM

Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM), a widely used cell culture medium, is more nutrient-rich than MEM and is proven for use with many mammalian cell types.

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RPMI 1640

Roswell Park Memorial Institute (RPMI) 1640 Medium is unique from other media because it contains the reducing agent glutathione and high concentrations of vitamins.

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DMEM F12

Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium Nutrient Mixture F-12 (DMEM F12), a 1:1 mixture combining the benefits of DMEM with the added nutrients found in Ham's F-12.

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MEM

Minimum Essential Medium (MEM), a commonly used cell culture media, can be modified to support a variety of mammalian cell culture types and applications.

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Selecting the right cell culture media

The success of any cell culture experiment depends on choosing the optimal cell culture media formulation for your unique cells and experimental conditions.Use the selection tool to choose from all options including classical media and innovative formulations.

Use our interactive Cell Culture Media Formulation Tool to compare and modify basal media to best fit your lab’s needs

Innovative cell culture media formulations

We are committed to innovating Gibco cell culture media. We go beyond basic formulations to provide optimized and innovative cell culture solutions in support of your efforts to achieve consistently reproducible results.

BenchStable Media

Gibco BenchStable Media, available in our most common cell culture media formulations, are stable at room temperature, allowing for convenient and flexible storage without utilizing cold storage space.

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Human Plasma-Like Medium

Gibco Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) is formulated to mimic the metabolic profile of human plasma, allowing for improved physiological relevance when studying cancer and disease.

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Media with GlutaMAX Supplement

Media with Gibco GlutaMAX Supplement are standard cell culture formulations containing a stabilized form of L-glutamine that prevents degradation and buildup of ammonia.

Explore GlutaMAX Media formulations

Learn more about our commitment to innovation

Constant innovation for cutting-edge cell culture, from our research labs to yours

You need a partner dedicated to helping you confidently forge new paths. Our team of skilled R&D scientists and our unwavering investment in innovation make Gibco cell culture media the trusted choice of boundary-pushing scientists around the world.

Other cell culture media

Gibco cell culture media are available in a variety of formulations to suit your research needs. Explore these additional options below.

IMDM media

Gibco Iscove’s Modified Dulbecco’s Medium (IMDM) is a highly enriched medium well suited for rapidly proliferating, high-density cell cultures, including Jurkat, COS-7, and macrophage cells. Choose from a large selection of IMDM media compositions for a range of cell culture applications.

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Media 199

Gibco Media 199 (M199 media) is useful across a wide range of species and applications but is particularly suitable for the culturing of non-transformed cells. M199 medium ingredients may include Earle’s salts and a bicarbonate/carbonic acid buffering system for the maintenance of pH in a CO₂ incubator or Hank’s salts with salt solutions designed for atmospheric equilibrium.

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Ham’s F-12

Gibco Ham’s F-12 Nutrient Mixture was formulated for single-cell plating of near-diploid Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells but has also been used for serum-free growth of CHO cultures and serum-supplemented growth of mammalian cells. Select from several high-quality and reliable formulations of Ham’s F-12 media, including glutamine-supplemented F-12 medium as well as GlutaMAX supplemented formulations, Kaighn's formulation, and powdered formats.

Order Ham’s F-12

Ham’s F-10

Gibco Ham’s F-10 Nutrient Mixture is formulated for serum-free growth of Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and the growth of various mammalian cell lines with serum supplementation. Rely on Gibco Ham's F-10 medium for superior quality, greater reliability, and improved consistency to give you better overall efficiency and more robust data.

Order Ham’s F-10

Custom cell culture media

Customize Gibco media catalog products—add or remove components, create customized packaging options, select QC tests, and more. Media formulations available for customization include classical basal media, protein expression media, stem cell media, and cell and gene therapy (CGT) media.Download the Gibco Custom media flyer

Explore media customization services

Cell culture media for bioprocessing

Partnering with you to empower progress in bioprocessing around the world. Whether you are developing a vaccine or need help scaling up, our dedicated team will keep you at the forefront of the evolving bioprocessing industry.

Explore scale-up opportunities

Additional cell culture media

Hybridoma media
Insect media
Microbiology media
Cell freezing media
Bioprocessing media
Basal Medium Eagle (BME)

Fischer's Medium
Glasgow's MEM (GMEM)
Leibovitz's L-15 Medium
Leibovitz's L-15 (GlutaMAX)
Leibovitz's L-15 (no phenol red)
Leibovitz's L-15 Medium, powder

McCoy's 5A (GlutaMAX)
McCoy's 5A (HEPES)
Lab Armor Beads
Gibco bottle weight
Gibco media bottles
Gibco media bags

Cell culture media by application

Regardless of whether you are performing cell culture in a research lab or production facility, need a special or defined formulation, or are growing cell lines, primary cells, or stem cells, Gibco products offer a reliable solution.

Organoid, spheroid, and 3D culture

Gibco media products have been used in a range of organoid, spheroid, and 3D culture studies, allowing for a more physiologically relevant understanding of complex biology.

Explore media for organoid, spheroid, and 3D cell culture

Stem cell culture

An extensive selection of high-quality media products are available for pluripotent stem cells, neural stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells, and stem cell therapy applications.

Explore media for stem cell culture

Neuronal cell culture

Gibco neuronal and neural cell media are optimized for the growth and support of primary neural cell and neuronal cultures and have been cited in applications involving primary neurons, glial cells, and disease models.

Explore media for neuronal cell culture

Primary cell culture

A wide range of Gibco media products are available for the support of many primary cell types, including fibroblasts, hepatocytes, and many more.

Explore media for primary cell culture

Cell Therapy Systems

Gibco Cell Therapy Systems (CTS) media products, designed for use in cell therapy applications, are manufactured to GMP standards and undergo extensive testing to ensure sterility and safety.

Explore CTS media

Protein expression media

Specific Gibco media formulations are available as components of our protein expression systems, supporting the generation of recombinant proteins for further use, including functional and therapeutic studies.

Explore media for protein expression

Media for cytogenetic research

A selection of specially formulated Gibco media are available for use in standard clinical cytogenetic protocols, with products optimized for analysis of amniotic fluid cells, chronic villus samples, bone marrow cells, or peripheral blood lymphocytes.

Explore media for cytogenetic research

Serum-free media

Gibco serum-free media are formulated with specific combinations of nutrients and hormones that support the growth of certain cells in the absence of animal sera, allowing for increased selectivity of the media, easier purification, and more consistent performance.

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Cell culture media best practices

Here are a few simple tips & tricks to help ensure your cell culture media are maintained for optimal performance.

If refrigerated, warm your cell culture media before use. Your cells would be cold at 2–8°C, and you would be too!

Keep your cell culture media protected from light. Light exposure degrades the essential vitamins in media that your cells need to grow.

Once you have supplemented the cell culture media with FBS, place the complete media into the refrigerator (2–8°C ) to maintain performance.

Use your supplemented media within 2–4 weeks to reduce the chances of contamination and the impact of pH drift.

GMP manufacturing

Gibco cell culture products are manufactured in facilities compliant with current good manufacturing practices (GMP) and adhere to a robust quality management system, helping to ensure the consistency, reliability, and high quality you can rely on.

Learn more about GMP manufacturing

Sustainable solutions

The 1 L Gibco bottle uses 38% less source material (32% less material for the 500 mL bottle) than comparable media bottles on the market today. This helps reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources, helping shrink your footprint.

Download the Green Fact Sheet
Learn more about sustainable solutions

Resources

Access cell culture and transfection educational resources for better experiment planning and execution.

Gibco Cell Culture Basics
Learn the fundamentals of cell culture for achieving consistent results, including laboratory setup, safety, and aseptic techniques.

Media Formulation Tool
Find the right Gibco media formulation for DMEM, DMEM/F-12, MEM, and RPMI-1640 media.

Cell Culture Media - US (2024)