Debating cell-synchronization methodologies: further points and alternative answers

In recent opinion papers in Trends in Biotechnology Cooper debated with Spellman and Sherlock on the validity and utility of ‘whole-culture’ techniques for cell synchronization. Cooper concluded that ‘whole-culture’ cell synchronization is biology's ‘perpetual-motion machine’ and ‘the results from such synchronization methods … cannot, and should not, be used to make deductions about the normal cell cycle’. Spellman and Sherlock objected to Cooper's criticism and claimed that ‘cell age and cell cycle are unlinked’.