With the rapid development of the field of bioengineering, cell engineering has been paid more and more attention. Insect cell culture technology, as a new field of bioengineering, has important value in modern biology, among which the genetic engineering research using insect baculovirus as the carrier and insect cells as the receptor has also made breakthrough progress. Insect cells cultured in vitro can express foreign genes efficiently, and insect baculoviruses are harmless to humans and animals, which makes insect cell culture technology being widely used in various fields such as biology, medicine and agriculture. In this paper, the research progress of insect cell culture is reviewed, including the basic components of insect cell culture medium in vitro, the addition of unclear medium, the bioreactor for the large-scale culture of insect cellss and the vector system of insect baculovirus expression and its application. It provides a theoretical basis for the development of serum-free culture medium for insect cells. Key words: insect cells; baculovirus; serum-free culture; mass cell culture