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Shaking Incubator for Bacterial Growth: What to Know

By Kim McDonald, 13 November 2023

When culturing bacteria in a shaking incubator, several factors must be considered that will impact bacterial growth, including shaking speed, temperature, growth medium, and growth vessels. These will vary depending on your application, time course, bacterial strain, expression vectors, features of your incubator, and other factors. Shaking incubators continuously introduce dissolved oxygen into the culture medium, promoting aerobic bacterial growth. Choosing the proper settings and culture conditions is essential for producing the greatest yield while minimizing cell death and recombination events.

Preventing Contamination in Mammalian Cell Culture

By Kim McDonald, 20 July 2023

Mammalian cell cultures can become contaminated with microbial contaminants (e.g., fungi, bacteria, and yeast) as well as viruses. An estimated 25% of all cell cultures are contaminated with mycoplasma bacterium alone. Contamination can affect cell viability, inhibit normal cellular processes, and lead to inconsistent results and experimental failures. Sources of contamination include working surfaces, reagents, personnel, and instrumentation. Water is excellent at conducting heat and equally great at becoming contaminated. Thus, water baths and CO₂ incubators are notorious for fostering the growth of bacteria, yeast, algae, and fungi, which can result in contaminated cultures. We’ve outlined best practices to ensure your water baths and CO₂ incubators do not ruin your next mammalian cell or tissue culture experiment.

How to Make a Lab Incubator

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 18 March 2021

We take a look at some of the top “instructables” for creating a lab incubator, examining some of the pros and cons of each.

Peltier vs. Compressor-Based Cooling

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 20 August 2019

Refrigerated lab incubators use either thermoelectric (Peltier) cooling or compressor-based cooling. We explain how the two types work and their benefits and disadvantages.

How to Use and Maintain Your Lab Incubator

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 01 May 2019

We reveal best practices for using and maintaining your lab incubator to ensure it works correctly for your application and has as long a lifespan as possible.

Possible Reasons for Temperature Issues With Your Lab Incubator

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 23 January 2019

If your lab incubator won’t heat up or cool down at all, or won’t reach its setpoint temperature, there could be a host of factors at play. We help you troubleshoot by looking at some possible reasons for temperature issues.

Thermal Conductivity versus Infrared CO2 Sensors

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 06 October 2018

We explain thermal conductivity sensors and infrared CO₂ sensors and discuss the practical implications of each.

Three Common Methods of Incubator Sterilization Explained

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 09 May 2018

There are many methods that can facilitate incubator self-decontamination. We explain three of the most common: UV sterilization, moist heat sterilization, and dry heat sterilization.

Temperature Specifications Explained: Accuracy, Uniformity, Stability

By Aimee O'Driscoll, 30 March 2018

While researching equipment that involves temperature settings, you’ll come across various similar terms. We help you make sense of different specifications by providing definitions for common temperature terms.

Difference Between Water- and Air-Jacketed CO2 Incubators

By Harmen Zijlstra, 08 September 2017

CO2 incubators can roughly be divided into two categories: water- and air-jacketed incubators. We take a look at the benefits and drawbacks of each, including factors affecting practicality and performance.