The expanding toolkit of insect cell culture: a new era in biotechnology

Insect cell culture has become an essential platform in modern biotechnology, valued for its safety, scalability, and ability to perform complex post-translational modifications. This review highlights the latest and most important advances in the field. We focus on efforts at developing and engineering new insect cell lines, innovations in expression systems, especially the baculovirus expression vector system and the transformative impact of CRISPR/Cas9-based genome editing. Additionally, we explore breakthroughs that improve the efficiency of recombinant protein production and discuss key challenges such as viral contamination and expression instability. Collectively, these developments mark an important step forward in insect cell biotechnology and are expected to enhance the efficiency and scalability of producing vaccines and biopharmaceuticals. Together, these innovations illustrate a transition from cataloging cell line development to understanding the mechanisms and engineering principles driving these advances. This review not only summarizes recent progress but also provides perspective on how foundational lepidopteran models have guided innovations now extending into dipteran, hemipteran, and hymenopteran systems, shaping the future of insect biotechnology.