Reoccuring fungus - (Dec/23/2007 )

Hello,

I have been doing Tissue culture work for many years without
any significant contamination issues.
Recently I have had a wave of fungal contaminations hit my cells.
All of my cells were contaminated. Even those growing in different medias.
I threw out my PBS, Medias and cells and started fresh. Now the Fungus has returned.
Has anyone had this sort of problem? Is it most likely due to the fact that the incubator
needs to be seriously scrubbed?

Dishes.

Cleaning the incubator may help, particularly if you have spilled something inside. I learned from my own mistakes that contamination is mainly due to carelessness.

Ware gloves at all times.
Dont use any pipet that touches unclean surface. Change it often.
Dont move your hand or arm over/across an openning bottle.
Dont put the bottle caps face down.
Clean the hood area before and after your use.

There's topics about cleaning incubators on this forum, just search for them.
And I agree with genehunter-1 that it's mostly carelessness, and the hints given are among the more important ones. (other s are to be found on this forum also).

May be the problem is not you. This could be due to some new students or person in the lab.

Also check if someone else is using your cell culture solutions.