The Tick Cell Biobank

The Tick Cell Biobank at the University of Liverpool is the world's largest collection of tick cell lines. It is the world's only dedicated culture collection for cell lines derived from ticks and other arthropods.

Tick cell lines offer a useful in vitro alternative to tick feeding on large or small laboratory animals for many aspects of tick and tick-borne disease research.

Multiple cell lines derived from most of the tick species of medical and veterinary importance worldwide, plus training in their maintenance, are available to not-for-profit researchers through the parent Tick Cell Biobank in Liverpool and Outposts in Malaysia, Kenya and Brazil.

The Tick Cell Biobank also houses a growing collection of cell lines derived from insect vectors including biting midges, mosquitoes, sand flies, triatomine bugs and tsetse flies, and a small collection of intracellular arthropod-borne bacteria.