The present disclosure describes an apparatus and method of improving temperature uniformity and suppressing well plate warping. In an embodiment, the apparatus includes a barrier configured to be positioned above at least one well configured to contain a liquid sample, where a vessel includes the at least one well, where the vessel is transparent and is configured to be placed within a measurement chamber, where a light measurement apparatus includes the measurement chamber, where the light measurement apparatus is configured to measure light scattered from the liquid sample, where the barrier is configured to seal the at least one well from the measurement chamber, and a weighted lid configured to press a bottom surface of the vessel against a well plate retainer of the measurement chamber, thereby spreading heat among the at least one well and preventing the vessel from warping.

Ultrasonic devices comprise a housing comprising an ultrasonic surface, an ultrasonic transducer, and an ultrasonic horn to provide and focus energy from the ultrasonic transducer to the ultrasonic surface. Methods of removing trapped air bubbles from a cell culture container comprise positioning a cell culture container comprising air bubbles trapped in liquid within microcavity wells of the cell culture container at an ultrasonic surface of an ultrasonic device. Mechanical agitation is generated by the ultrasonic device and applied to the cell culture container to remove the trapped air bubbles from the microcavity wells. Methods of releasing cell aggregates from a cell culture container comprising positioning a cell culture container comprising cell aggregates in microcavity wells at an ultrasonic surface of an ultrasonic device. The cell aggregates are released from the microcavity wells by applying mechanical agitation from the ultrasonic device to a surface of the cell culture container.

A system for electronically and optically monitoring biological samples, the system including: a multi-well plate having a plurality of wells configured to receive a plurality of biological samples, each of the wells having a set of electrodes and a transparent window on a bottom surface of the well that is free of electrodes; an illumination module configured to illuminate the wells; a cradle configured to receive the multi-well plate, the cradle having an opening on the bottom that exposes the transparent windows of the wells; and an optical imaging module movable across different wells of a same multi-well plate to capture images through the windows.

The present disclosure provides a cell culture automation system that provides enclosed culture conditions that may reduce the risk of contamination and automatically culture cells in large scale. Particularly, the cell culture system comprises (i) one or more removable microfluidic microwells and (ii) a culture device holding the microfluidic microwells, wherein each microfluidic microwell has one or multiple hollow units compartmentalized, and containing microfluidic channels with no bottoms throughout the microfluidic microwell, wherein the microfluidic channels contain one or more cell inlets.

A microwell perfusion plate system includes a plate and at least one well on the plate. Each well includes: a porous membrane; a through-pore microwell membrane above and on the porous membrane, the microwell membrane including a plurality of microwells with a respective microwell configured to hold a 3D cell culture, wherein a respective microwell includes a top opening and a bottom opening; an inlet passageway in fluid communication with each top opening of the plurality of microwells and configured to deliver liquid medium to the plurality of microwells and the 3D cell cultures held therein; an outlet passageway in fluid communication with each bottom opening of the plurality of microwells and configured to receive the liquid medium from the plurality of microwells; and a cell culture well directly above the microwell membrane, wherein the cell culture well defines at least a portion of the inlet passageway.

A microfabricated device having at least one gas-entrapping feature formed therein in a configuration that entraps air bubbles upon wetting the feature with a solvent or solution is described. The device includes a sacrificial residue in contact with the gas-entrapping feature, the dissolution of which guides the wetting of the gas-entrapping feature.

A cell culture insert with a hollow cylindrical housing having an upper end-face opening delimited by an opening edge and a lower end-face base designed as a membrane, support feet being arranged on the base edge of the housing and/or on the base and at least one support arm. The legs protrude downward for supporting the housing on a support in a non-tipping manner with a small uniform spacing between the base and the support. The at least one support arm protrudes outwards at the opening edge and can be placed on an edge of a well plate in which a plurality of wells. The support arm is an edge hanging element, and for this purpose, has a support section that runs radially relative to the housing and a hanging section that runs from the support section downwards in the direction of the base of the housing.

An expandable array and methods of maintaining a biological sample within an expandable array are provided. The expandable array includes a plurality of receptacles configured to receive a biological sample and a plurality of beams comprising a programmable material. Each beam of the plurality of beams is located between and connects at least two receptacles. The programmable material can be a shape-memory polymer or a magnetoactive material that transitions the plurality of beams from an extended state to a contracted state upon application of a stimulus.

Disclosed are a spheroid array and more particularly, a droplet trapping structure array capable of isolating all or selected spheroids into an isolated droplet array environment and the use thereof. The droplet-trapping structure array and the method and device for transferring spheroids using the same have the advantages of transferring droplets or spheroids with very high efficiency and very small variation between users by simply contacting two arrays. The spheroid transfer method and device enable mass-production of spheroid arrays in an isolated environment. In particular, the droplet trapping structure array and the spheroid transfer method can be useful for the treatment of spheroids with various reagents and the exchange of culture media.

In a method for cultivating biological cells of differing types, carriers are stored in an incubator, in which the carriers comprise one or more storage chambers. One or more cultures comprising cells of a common type are stored in one of the storage chambers. Cultivation parameters are assigned to the cultures. Datasets containing organizational coordinates of each storage chamber and the cultivation parameters of the culture stored therein are stored in a data processing device. The carriers are removed from the incubator at predefined time intervals in order to treat the cultures according to their respective cultivation parameters. The datasets are divided into groups with correlated cultivation parameters. The cultures are subsequently treated in groups.