H35 Hypoxystation-3

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Date: 17^th August 2012

Accurate control of the oxygen tension to which cells are exposed to has become an important consideration in many aspects of biomedical research. At King’s College London, our customers Giovanni Mann (Professor of Vascular Physiology at Kings College London) and Richard Siow (Senior Lecturer in Physiology) are investigating how altering levels of oxygen regulate the function of cardiovascular cells.

Professor Mann's team is part of the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at King’s College London. His research focuses on vascular dysfunction induced by oxidative stress in diseases such as atherosclerosis, pre-eclampsia and diabetes. Until recently Professor Mann’s team used a CO₂incubator, which enabled them to reduce the level of oxygen but did not provide an accurate control to achieve well defined oxygen environments for long term cell culture studies. It was also necessary to remove the cells from the incubator in order to work with them, exposing them periodically to higher levels of oxygen.

Through a research and development collaboration between Professor Mann and Dr Siow with Don Whitley Scientific, their group now uses a workstation to conduct experiments in vascular cells under well defined oxygen environments, providing results that would have been very difficult to obtain in a standard CO₂ incubator.

According to Professor Mann:

“The Whitley Workstation has provided us with a system that allows us to control oxygen concentrations accurately. We can manipulate cells under low oxygen conditions and continue to conduct experiments under well defined environmental conditions. The design of this workstation has also allowed us to use other essential equipment inside the chamber, such as oxygen meters and micromanipulators.

“The service and support we have received from Don Whitley Scientific has always been excellent. They design and manufacture equipment based on an interactive relationship with bench-based researchers. It is good to work with a company that cares about the advancements in science and whose equipment helps scientists like us make significant discoveries leading to important advances in medicine.”

See the Hypoxystation for more information on this type of workstation.

Professor Giovanni Mann and Dr Richard Siow

Kings College London