Mammalian Stem Cell Culture Bootcamp 2025

We proudly hosted SDSU’s first ever "cell culture" bootcamp, in Summer 2025. Our pilot run was a 3-day immersive, hands-on experience designed to support students pursuing careers in research, industry, and higher education. We are building this bootcamp to provide them the opportunity to build skills that are not currently covered in SDSU lab course curriculum. However, cell and tissue culture is used in every biotech company and is the basis of many stem cell or immunotherapies.

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Therefore, our bootcamp participants learn the foundational aseptic (super sterile) techniques and the types of equipment required to safely work with mammalian cells. Students learn media preparation, elements of expanding out ("passaging") cell cultures, as well as microscopy and other tools to study cells. We also provide professional development workshops and targeted career support to each individual student.

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This bootcamp marks an exciting step toward building a more inclusive, skilled, and career-ready scientific community at SDSU and beyond. Our dream is to create a new semester-long lab course for cell/tissue culture at SDSU, and provide additional week-long Bootcamps over the summers to maximize the number of students reached.