Cell Culture Facility

The Cell Culture Facility of the IIBB, located in the seventh floor, is a biosafety 2 level laboratory exclusively used by the research groups of the IIBB. It is equipped with the basic devices needed to obtain and maintain cell cultures in a laboratory: laminar flow and biological safety cabinets, cell culture incubators, a workstation to perform anoxia and hypoxia, centrifuges, water bath, inverted microscopes, freezer, and autoclave. A gas station, located outside the laboratory, is the responsible for the supply of the different gases needed in the laboratory: CO2, N2 and carbogen. Users work with primary cultures and cell culture lines obtained from humans and experimental animals tissues.

The daily maintenance of the laboratory is performed by a technician, Albert Parull, who is in charge of constantly taking care and maintaining the laboratory in optimal working conditions: basic maintenance of cabinets and incubators, control of the correct function of any of the instruments present in the laboratory, appropriate waste disposal, control of the supply of any material needed for the proper work in the laboratory. An annual revision of the proper functioning of the laminar flow and biological safety cabinets, the autoclave and the gas supply is performed by specialized companies.

The laboratory also has a scientific supervisor, Dr. Valerie Petegnief. She is in charge of supervising technician’s work, takes care of the appropriate use of the laboratory and solves questions/issues regarding users’ needs.