In 2006, inspired by neural stem cell (NSC) culture conditions, the Fine lab used serum-free, EGF/FGF-2-supplemented Neurobasal medium to cultivate primary glioma cells and found that these cells remained more similar to the parental tumors than those cultured in serum-containing DMEM medium 1).

1)
Lee J, Kotliarova S, Kotliarov Y, Li A, Su Q, Donin NM, Pastorino S, Purow BW, Christopher N, Zhang W, Park JK, Fine HA. Tumor stem cells derived from glioblastomas cultured in bFGF and EGF more closely mirror the phenotype and genotype of primary tumors than do serum-cultured cell lines. Cancer Cell. 2006 May;9(5):391-403. PubMed PMID: 16697959.