Hypoxic stress can model components of many severe diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, asthma, or epilepsy. Frequency, duration and degree of drops are all adjustable.

Cells destined for implantation will experience hypoxia and may be better prepared if they are conditioned to it before implantation. Ischemia may also be protected by conditioning. The OxyCycler GT41 can easily run any preconditioning profile.

Model step reduction in oxygen, similar to altitude acclimation, to gradually condition cells for hypoxic upregulation of gene expression. The rate of change between any two levels is adjustable and repeatable. The duration at any given level is adjustable and repeatable.

Sudden increases in oxygen can cause cell damage. The OxyCycler GT41 allows modeling toxicity of oxygen in any cell culture, similar to toxicity from recreational oxygen inhalation by athletes, therapeutic oxygen administration in critical care units, and other sudden exposures to high oxygen. The rate of oxygen increase can be adjusted to change faster to overwhelm antioxidants, or change slower to condition for antioxidants.

HUMIDITY IS CHALLENGING

Most cell culture procedures treat humidity as a necessary second thought. Humidity saturation is usually the result, and saturation leads to condensation. Condensation is always undesired for multiple reasons. #1 High contamination risk. #2 Equipment malfunction. #3 Inconvenient mess. OxyCycler GT41 meets the challenge with the ability to limit the negative consequences of excessive humidity; one of the few in all cell culture devices.

HUMIDITY IS NORMALLY NEGLECTED

Despite the undesired consequences of condensation, humidity is mostly neglected, permitting the drying of humidity is necessary but technology is limited to control it.

HUMIDITY EFFECTS GASOTRANSMITTER PERFORMANCE

Gasotransmitter culture systems require better humidity control and necessitate a much lower level of humidity in routine cultures. In fact, best performance is when humidity is 60% or less. The OxyCycler GT41 uses a simple but effective way to limit humidity to optimal levels. User has to verify that lower levels are not going to be detrimental to the drying of their cultures or has to accommodate the suppression of certain performance capabilities of the system.

Open water surfaces are used in the subchamber to humidify the atmosphere but limits are set by operator to be as low as possible. The controller monitors relative humidity and infuses dry nitrogen as necessary to prevent the humidity from exceeding predetermined limits.

A water pan is included with each subchamber, however it is not recommended to pour water directly into the pan for humidification purposes. Instead it is highly recommended to place sterile plates of sterile, distilled water in the water pan which serves as a catch basin in case of a spill. Humidification rate is a function of the surface area of the open water. Adjusting the surface area to increase or decrease the surface area is proper way to balance the humidification rate with the chamber size. Otherwise it would take a reasonable amount of gas consumption to counter the rate of humidification.