Small portable CO2 incubator for cell cultures

Cell lines grown in-vitro in specialized CO2 incubators are kept in standard conditions involving constant temperature, CO2 level (sometimes also O2) and 100% humidity. However, some experimental procedures demand a transport of live cell cultures leading to an exposition of the cells to the environmental conditions for pro-longed time period. Such exposition can cause indefinable cellular stress potentially interfering with the experimental procedures. To solve such specific situations, we developed portable incubator which keeps constant conditions during the transport.

We developed and successfully tested a small portable cell culture incubator which integrates systems for temperature and CO2 concentration control and keeps 100% humidity. It can be used as a standard cell culture incubator connected to the external 220 V power and CO2 source. In case it is needed the incubator can be switched into the transport regime involving its own high-power battery and internal CO2 source (it has embedded 2L cylinder with liquid CO2). Disconnected it can keep constant conditions for many hours (depending on environmental conditions and frequency of doors opening). Practical handle, low weight and small size allow one-person transport of the incubator. In case of transport inside a car it can be connected to the standard 12V plugin to save the internal battery. The refiling of internal CO2 cylinder is done by the user from standard CO2 cylinders with liquid CO2.

Inter-laboratory transport of live cell cultures
Transport of live cell cultures towards specialized non-portable machines (ionizing radiation sources, accelerators, NMR etc.)
Advantages:
High-power LiFePO4 battery powered
Its own source of CO2

Prototype.

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