MIC-101 Advantages Over Standard Incubators
Technical Note
Not Your Standard Incubator
Embrient’s Modular Incubator Chamber (MIC-101) has a set of unique characteristics that distinguish it from standard continuous flow CO2 incubators (the ones commonly used for cell culture in research labs). It is important to note that the MIC-101 a fully enclosed environment designed for custom oxygen conditions but can be applied to routine cell culture applications as well. Since the MIC-101 does not have heating elements of its own, the protocol for using the MIC-101 requires that it be placed into a 37ºC incubator after the chamber is sealed. What are the incubator chamber’s advantages over standard incubators and why should you consider one even if you have a standard 37ºC incubator? The critical points are highlighted below.
The MIC-101:
1. Eliminates the Edge Effect
The lack of air currents prevents the Edge Effect, where the outside wells of multi-well plates experience extensive evaporation potentially resulting in dramatic changes in pH, nutrient and salt concentrations, as well as the effective reagent concentration being used in the experiment. Learn more in this Tech Note.
2. Minimizes contamination risk
The closed environment of the MIC-101 helps to protect against contamination, which is a common pitfall for standard incubators where more users and more openings increase the risk for contamination. The MIC-101 is ideal for critical experiments that need to stay isolated from other cultures in the same incubator, i.e., keep infectious agents in and contaminants out.
3. Maintains consistent O2/CO2, temperature, and humidity
The frequent opening of standard incubator doors creates fluctuations in oxygenation (O2/CO2), temperature, and humidity, which can create inconsistencies and variability in experimental results. See more below. Once inside an incubator, even when doors are constantly being opened, the interior conditions within the MIC-101 remain stable.
Learn more about the many benefits of the Modular Incubator Chamber.
This is what happens every time you open your incubator door…
There is an inherent flaw in every standard CO2 incubator with a door. That is, every time the door is opened, there is a loss in the desired conditions, notable humidity, temperature, and O2/CO2 levels, which takes some time to recover. Humidity is particularly affected since recovery times to get back to 90% humidity can be very long (>50 minutes). Temperature can also take a significant amount of time (over 10 minutes to 90% recovery). These recovery times may vary for different makes and models of incubators.
While one instance may seem trivial, many incubators experience heavy traffic with multiple users and multiple experiments requiring opening and closing of the incubator door many times a day. The potential variability being introduced in these scenarios should not be underestimated. In particular, the drops in relative humidity will likely amplify the Edge Effect, further enhancing evaporation from outer wells of multi-well plates.
The use of a completely self-contained environment provided by the Modular Incubator Chamber eliminates any potential variability created by opening of incubator doors. It can safely maintain its conditions for a minimum of 72 hours unperturbed, even if the door of the incubator where it is housed is opened often.
Rapid heat escape upon incubator door opening. The image to the left is a visualization of heat escaping from an incubator 0.5 seconds after the door is fully opened.
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