Evaluation of an automated cell culture incubator: the autocell 200

We evaluated the benefits of automation on the technical performance of a new automated cell culture incubator, the Autocell 200®, developed by Jouan SA. In addition, we assessed the potential interference of the embedded mechanical parts on cell culture growth. We measured a throughput of 150 plates loaded per hour, and 120 plates unloaded per hour, which is compatible with an external robotic handler. The mean time of robotic gate opening was 7 s. The gate pathway minimized climate disturbances inside the incubator. For CO2, we used a delay between opening events of 1 min. Biological assay results did not demonstrate a significant difference between the automated incubator and a traditional manual incubator, but we concluded that automation using the Autocell 200® could provide meaningful benefits for cell culture.