Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 05:06:01 GMT From: jaldr@onramp.net (James Aldridge) To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1297$foo@default> Subject: Re: TC, Microwaves and Pings
>>I do not own a pressure cooker for which I need to sterilize media for
>>tissue culture. I was wondering if I could use my microwave oven to
>>sterilize the media? If I can, how long?=20
>
>Microwave won't do it. You can only heat something to boiling in it. You
>will ruin the media before it is safely sterilized at boiling temps. You
>need a moist temperature above the boiling point. The only way to get
>that is a pressure vessel. Pressure Cooker is the simplist if it has a
>good guage to show the pressure. You want 15 lbs for 15 minutes.
Culture media can be sterilized using microwave ovens. A number of =
protocols
have been published. Microorganisms heat up differently than the water =
around
them under these conditions - recall that this is not a simple heat =
conduction
event as occurs in boiling water.
On the other hand, most workers agree that simple pressure cooker =
sterilization
is generally easier.
Jim
James Aldridge - Fort Worth, Texas, USA
jaldr@onramp.net or aldrjame@tenet.edu
http://rampages.onramp.net/~jaldr
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:01 PST