Most of life science is reliant on the ability to grow the thing you want to study, this requires media. Media is the 'food' which cells use to grow and as such it is important that cells get the right nutrients to grow optimally. Dr. Rebecca Vaught talked with us about how she and her collegues at the Van Heron Labs are providing bespoke media products to many labs in order to maximise growth conditions according to individual research projects. This will increase prospects and productivity of these research projects increasing the likelihood of great results and useful biotechnologies.