disinfection - options for disinfecting laminar flow (Oct/20/2005 )
apart from using uv to disinfect laminar flow for plant tissue culture what are the other measures one can follow or what are other chemicals one can use such that the conditions are ultra safe for the purpose.I would be grateful if i could get reply for this
As am facing lots of problem with contamination, plz reply me for the remedy .
Are your hepa filters still okay? UV is not really efficient if there's a lot of aerosolformation. Apart from that, using a lot of ethanol 70% before use, after use and regularly in between is a good start. Before starting to work, let it on for at least 10 minutes, spray with ethanol and let it on for another 10 minutes, then start working. Also, don't put too much materials in your flow, they interfere with the flowing of the air... Don't put your flow near the doors, or near a place with a lot of people passing by, as external air movings also interfere with the air flow in you laminar flow.
May I ask you what kind of contamination you are facing?
Touch wood, but could it be related with plant material? Sometimes plant contamination are a bit long to detect and have long incubation time...
...or with your equipment (dishes, Magenta vessels, tweezers, filters or even substrate...)?
Generally the first thing to do in case of contamination is to sterilize everything another time and change stock solutions...
I work with human cells and use 70% ethanol to wipe down the cabinit. I also re-apply it to my gloves if I take them out of the hood, and spray every piece of equiptment with it!
Our cabinit also gets cleaned every week (I was gobsmacked to hear that this isn't always the case in some labs!). So far we havn't had any contamination, but fingers crossed that it stays that way!
Our cabinit also gets cleaned every week (I was gobsmacked to hear that this isn't always the case in some labs!). So far we havn't had any contamination, but fingers crossed that it stays that way!
Using HEK cells here, but we have a multi-user cell-culture room.
Everything going into the hood gets sprayed, including gloves and wrists. Spray hood before use and after. UV before use and after. Cabinet is given a thorough clean weekly. DMEM drips are wiped with disinfectant, then sprayed with 70% EtOH. Water bath has anti-fungal agent added to it weekly. Specific lab coats for cell culture use only are worn.
So far, no infections.
IME, most hood infections are caused by either water from the bath not being wiped off bottles and sprayed or from stray drips of DMEM not being cleaned properly.
hi
i check at least once per year the HEPA filter system.
Before and after working, i was with a detergent spray twice. Not using ethanol.
At once every three months, all stuff that can be washed in a washing machine goes to a hot wash...
never get contaminations (but i cross the fingers for not getting any one 
)
fred
do you check your incubators regularly? We incubate agar plates or blood plates (without lids) o/n to check for nasty stuff in the incubator weekly. If the incubator is infected your cabinet can be clean but you will end up with infections anyway. Whenever we pick up stuff (which happens rarely, but it does happen sometimes) we autoclave all possible parts of the incubator and clean the rest of it thoroughly with EtOH