Are You Getting What You Paid For? Methods for Determining Authenticity of Fetal Bovine Serum

We recently encountered a customer who had purchased their fetal bovine serum (FBS) at a very low price. Anytime we hear about FBS selling near or below the cost of the raw source material, we get a little curious. When we inquired about the IgG level that was listed on the product certificate of analysis, the customer asked why. We told them that it was quite possible that they had not received FBS but instead a product that included newborn calf serum (NBCS). We explained that NBCS is significantly cheaper than FBS and contains different protein concentrations that can negatively impact certain cell culture systems. If this was the case, not only did this customer overpay for their FBS by many thousands of dollars, but they also potentially confounded their research. We believe it is time to educate FBS customers. We wanted to explain the differences between FBS and NBCS and provide two simple tests that can be used to distinguish the two products.