PERCIVAL INCUBATOR

PERCIVAL INCUBATORS

The mission of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) is to conduct and support medical research and research training and to disseminate science-based information on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, nutritional disorders, and obesity; and kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases, in order to improve people’s health and quality of life.

Dictyostelium cell lines must be maintained at a constant temperature of 20–24 °C. Temperatures above or below this range alter their physiology, with higher temperatures causing cell death. The current system is more than 15 years old and has reliability issues, requiring several repair orders in recent years. Cell lines in this incubator were lost when the system overheated in the middle of the night. This has resulted in many weeks required to re-establish the cell lines and has led to wasted United States Government resources. The system is reaching the end of its life cycle.

An exact replacement of the current dual-sized cell incubator chamber is required, with a temperature-controlled backup system and the capacity to support an internal 70-pound shaker and an internal computer-controlled real-time cell imaging system