Eagle's minimal essential medium

Minimal essential medium (MEM) is a synthetic cell culture medium developed by Harry Eagle first published in 1959 in Science that can be used to maintain cells in tissue culture.

Many variations of this medium have been developed, mostly adding additional vitamins, amino acids, and/or other nutrients.

[2] Eagle developed his earlier "Basal Medium Eagle" (BME) in 1955–1957 on mouse L cells[3] and human HeLa cells,[4] with 13 essential amino acids and 9 vitamins added.

His 1959 "minimal essential medium" doubles the amount of many amino acids to "conform more closely to the protein composition of cultured human cells.

[1] DMEM (Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium) was originally suggested as Eagle's medium with a 'fourfold concentration of amino acids and vitamins' by Renato Dulbecco and G. Freeman published in 1959.