What Exactly is an Incubator? The Complete Guide To Understanding Microbiological Incubators

A laboratory incubator is a crucial equipment in any laboratory. They provide a controlled, contaminant-free environment for safe, reliable work with cell and tissue cultures by regulating conditions such as temperature, humidity, and CO2.

What is a laboratory incubator?

It is a heated, insulated box used to grow and sustain microbiological or cell cultures. The laboratory incubator does this by maintaining optimal temperature, humidity, and gaseous content of the atmosphere inside. The microbiological incubators differs in size from compact table-top units to large systems, the size of a cupboard.

The simplest incubators offer only a little more than being temperature-controlled ovens, that are capable of reaching temperatures of 60 to 65°C, but generally used at about 36 to 37°C. A large amount of modern incubators can also generate refrigerated temperatures, and control humidity and CO2 levels.

What is a laboratory incubator used for?

The primary function of an incubator is to endow a controlled, contaminant-free environment for safe and reliable work with cell and tissue cultures by regulating conditions such as temperature, humidity, and CO2. Laboratory incubators are fundamental for the growth and storage of bacterial cultures, cell and tissue culture, biochemical and haematological studies, pharmaceutical work and food analysis.

Incubators are often deployed in modern research laboratories to preserve a stable atmosphere for processes such as growing cells and microbiological cultures and incubating antibodies and cells for fluorescence microscopy.

A common misconception is that ovens can be used in place of incubators because they both produce heat. However, they are not the same, as an oven produces temperatures typically ranging from 93.3 to 316 degrees Celsius, while an incubator typically ranges from 15.6 to 48.9 degrees Celsius. Therefore, an oven cannot be used as an incubator because most ovens will not have a low enough temperature that is suitable for using as an incubator.

Laboratory Incubators are used for growing cell cultures, reproduction of germ colonies with subsequent germ count in the food industry, reproduction of germ colonies and subsequent determination of biochemical oxygen demand in wastewater monitoring, reproduction of microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, yeast or viruses; breeding of insects and hatching of eggs in zoology, controlled sample storage and in growing of crystals/protein crystals.

Microbiological Incubators in Laboratory: Working, Uses and Basic Structure

Although there are many types and models of incubators, none of them come close to the sheer power that the microbiological incubator can offer. They are used in laboratories, hospitals, and medical stores to help sustain life, such as keeping cultures alive. This machine can sustain a culture until they grow into a certain amount.

 

What Are Its Components?

The main component is the air that gets circulated through water, which can keep microorganisms at an optimal growing temperature without killing them off. The lower part of Incubators will contain water kept at 4 degrees Celsius or lower and an agitating device that rotates or stirs up the liquid so it doesn't get stagnant or dead spots where organisms die off.

Basic Structure of Microbiological Incubators

Microbiological incubators can be divided into four parts: Reservoir (Warming Plate), Tank, Tubing, and Housings. The Reservoir is a small water tank that you can quickly put your tubing into or keep under another reservoir.

Many also use it to control the temperature just by regulating the amount of water they feed it with. The heating plate is at the bottom of the incubator, where you'll place your tubes or chambers of culture so it can be kept warm throughout the entire process.

The tubing connects all of the tubes and chambers and connects to water so it can be fed and circulated throughout the incubator. The housing is a large container where the entire incubator is kept as a unit on its own, and once it's made, you'll place your tubes in.

Use of Microbiological Incubators in Lab

Microbiology is a science that's dedicated to studying living things. These living things could be plants or animals, but we're talking about microorganisms in this case. It's essential to understand those tiny organisms to be used in advancing medicine, biology, and many other fields. But how do you study them without killing them off? So the very first thing you need to do is keep the samples alive using a microbiological incubator. This incubator machine will help keep the sample alive and keep it at an optimal growing temperature that won't kill anything off like too cold or too hot.

Why Incubators is important in science laboratory

Incubators are those devices which are widely used, to grow and maintain cell cultures. Its first and foremost function is to maintain optimal temperature, humidity and other conditions such as carbon dioxide and oxygen content of the atmosphere inside. There are three main types of materials which are used or is necessary to manufacture an incubator. The first is stainless steel sheet metal of a common grade (0.02 to 0.04 inch) thick and is used to resist rust and corrosion. Other necessary components are nuts, screws, insulation, fans, motors and other miscellaneous items. And this type of material is electronics package, whose functioning depends on the usage of the unit in consideration. It may have a simple on/off switch or can be programmed microprocessor module to maintain different temperature levels.

 Importance of Incubators

There are multiple uses of incubators in a scientific lab

·         It is commonly used to maintain a constant temperature, and there can be other built in functions as well. But their functionality’s not limited to this, as many of them can even control humidity as well.

·         Incubators with shaking function, incorporate movement to mix cultures.

·         Internal gas composition can be regulated by using Gas Incubators.

·         Air circulation are used by some of the Incubators, in order to ensure even distribution of temperature.

·         Incubators built for laboratories has an in-built power source, to avoid experiment disruption due to power outages.

·         Tissue culture is done, which is a research technique to extract tissue fragments of plants and animals, to monitor their further growth, by putting them in incubator. For example, tissue culture has enabled the researchers to know more about cancerous cells so that vaccines can be developed for polio, influenza, measles and mumps.

·         It can also be used in genetic engineering, to manipulate the genetic materials, in pursuit to create new organisms by combining DNA’s of distinct sources. It has widely helped the researchers, to make insulin and other biologically vital and important proteins. The nutritional content of fruits and vegetables can also be increased by using genetic engineering, which can greatly increase the resistivity of various crops to avoid disease causing bacteria.

The incubators have provided a very basis or foundation for today’s medical advances in cellular and molecular biology. While neonatal incubators will always be required by the hospitals to monitor the new born babies, just to save them from death due to premature deliveries, the bio-technological industry remains one such place, where the actual and active growth lies for this particular product. The Microbiological Incubators which are growth chamber type, will always be needed to control temperature and relative humidity with more precise settings, in order to support microbiologists and researchers, as they investigate new ways or methods to improve our health and well-being. Thus, Incubators being one such product which will continue to evolve with the technological advancements, just to support human race and other living beings safe and peaceful co-existence.