Cell culture cassettes and incubator

Abstract

The invention relates to cassettes for culturing cells. The invention also relates to analytical and preparative incubators for housing the cassettes. The invention also relates to methods of using the cassettes, for example, to culture cells wherein the processes of feeding and passaging cells are automated.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of operating an incubator, the method comprising:
 storing, by a computing device, parameters for a schedule of processes to apply to cell cultures in cassettes;   placing the cell culture cassettes into the incubator for cell culturing;   imaging cell cultures in the cell culture cassettes;   monitoring, by the computing device, data about environmental conditions and cell density during cell culturing;   sending a user an image of the culture when the monitored density reaches a desired threshold;   passaging the cells or performing another process in response to a user input regarding the image of the culture.   
     
     
         2 . The method of operating the incubator of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving data about environmental conditions at a remote server from the.   
     
     
         3 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the image is transmitted to a remote server and the remote server emails the image to the user. 
     
     
         4 . The method according to  claim 3 , wherein the imager transmits the image to the remote server according to a time schedule. 
     
     
         5 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the step of imaging comprises positioning an imaging device over the cell culture using a robotic arm. 
     
     
         6 . The method according to  claim 1 , further comprising sending an alert to the user to check environmental conditions. 
     
     
         7 . The method according to  claim 6 , wherein the alert is an SMS communication.