The History Behind Bovine Serum Albumin

Bovine serum albumin is an important product for labs, aiding in the growth and stability of cell cultures, and providing a variety of other uses in the medical field. Although we’ve known about serum albumin for hundreds of years, we weren’t able to use it fully until the last century. Without it, medical research and medicine would look very different. Here’s how it all started.

In the Beginning

By the 17th century, medicine was still fairly primitive, but it was during that century, that scientists began to understand that our blood consisted of two distinct things. The first was the parts in blood that clotted and stopped bleeding. The second was a watery substance that was left after the clot formed, what they called “serum,” but what we now refer to as plasma.

By the 19th century, the understanding of this substance had grown and scientists knew that the water-soluble proteins, the “albumen” (with an ‘e,’ as they spelled it then), must be important for life because of their ubiquitous nature.

Further study helped scientists to understand albumin more. They soon realized that albumin was the most soluble part of the serum and there was also quite a bit of it to be found in blood. About 50% of our blood’s plasma is albumin. The essentially unlimited supply made albumin one of the best proteins for scientists to study.

In 1894, it was confirmed that albumin was a single substance, and in 1926, its absolute molecular weight was confirmed as 70,000 daltons.

Wartime Use

The Army’s interest in bovine serum albumin was piqued during WWII, as the need for a substitute for human plasma grew. Dr. Edwin Cohn developed what became known as the Cohn process, a number of purification steps to extract albumin from blood plasma. Dr. Cohn found that serum albumin was less viscous, more stable, and less antigenic than actual plasma. His research also concluded that was apparently no difference between the bovine and human albumin.

The Army discontinued their work with bovine serum albumin in 1943 after a fatal case of apparent serum sickness.

BSA Today

Advances in the scientific world and further research into bovine serum albumin have led to the well-known product that we use today. Bovine serum albumin, or BSA, has a plethora of uses in the medical field, mostly due to its ability to act as a binding agent. What that means is that serum albumin can be a carrier for fatty acids, hormones, and steroids. Because of its ability to carry these nutrients, serum albumin is widely used in regenerative medicine and for growing cell cultures.

At Boval, we’ve long been known as leaders in the field of bovine serum albumin and we have over 30 custom BSA formulations in both liquid and lyophilized formats. Even if you have specific needs that aren’t met by those formulations, our flexible process and high degree of customization means that we can meet nearly any specifications.

We know that one BSA formulation isn’t going to work for everyone. What works best for one customer may not work for another. That’s why we take the time to listen to our customers and understand exactly what they need from their BSA. Give us a call today and one of our knowledgeable staff will help you find the right formulation for your lab or company.