Combating Contamination

Preventing contamination is critical when using a CO2 incubator. Baker Company aims to help laboratory professionals do just that with the release of their new CO2 incubator, the Cultivo™, which is designed to protect against accidental cell culture contamination from a wide variety of sources.

“From the beginning, we designed Cultivo to be a ‘contamination preventer,’” said Dan Eagleson, vice president of Baker. A number of features work to stop contamination from happening, including vertical, uni-directional downward airflow which delivers ISO Class 4, Class 10 clean air to the incubator chamber within 60 seconds after a door opening. In addition, a fogless interior door gives users a clearer view of cultures on every shelf, meaning they won’t have to open the door as often, thus reducing the potential for contaminants to enter the chamber. Lastly, optional ultrasonic humidification allows users to eliminate the use of a water pan–and the risk of contaminants that typically go along with it.

If contamination does occur, an optional, pre-programmed and easy-to-follow vaporized hydrogen peroxide biodecontamination protocol is available, which effectively kills a wide variety of contaminants in under four hours.

Another cool thing about the incubator is its InteliCELLTM P.I.D. control algorithm, which provides precise, stable and user-defined environmental conditions. InteliCELL consistently maintains user-defined set points by accounting for factors that other technologies leave as unknown.

“This is beyond smart technology,” Eagleson said. “This is the intelligence that drives the performance of Cultivo, delivering a level of precision, control, and uniformity not previously available to researchers within a CO2 incubator. This allows them to explore the impact that each environmental parameter–or a change in those parameters–will have on their work.”

For more information, visit http://www.bakerco.com/products/cultivo