Our Team
Cell Culture
Our cell culture facility houses class II biosafety cabinets, CO2 incubators and essential equipment like light microscopes, centrifuges and water baths.
Staff in charge: Ms. Joyce Wong
The BSC 1300 Series A2 is a Class II Type A2 Biological Safety Cabinet which is suitable for general cell culture experiments.
The refrigerated centrifuge 5910R is equipped with a swing-bucket rotor with universal adapters allowing centrifugation of conical vessels up to 50 mL, plates, and 250 mL bottles.
The Series 3 Water Jacketed CO2 Incubators are maintained at 37°C with 5% CO2 for cell culture.
How to apply for access?
1. The guidelines for the Cell Culture Facility can be found here. Violation of the rules would result in a warning from BioCRF and restricted use of the facilities for the whole research group.
2. The Cell Culture Facility is open to HKUST users only.
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3. All the equipment in the Cell Culture Facility is for mammalian cell culture use only and is not catered for any other applications.
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4. To apply for access, attend the courses “Safety Orientation for Laboratory Personnel” and “MC06 Biological Safety” organized by HSEO and obtain the course completion certificate for “MC06 Biological Safety”.
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5. Download and complete the application form here.
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6. Send a scanned copy of the completed application form and the “MC06 Biological Safety” course completion certificate to BioCRF staff via email (Joyce Wong, joycepswong@ust.hk).
7. Book a cell culture facility training session via BioCRF’s booking system. The operation of equipment and the basic technique for adherent cell subculturing will be demonstrated. Attendance of the whole training session is compulsory and irrespective of the applicants’ experience in cell culture.
8. Arrange an evaluation session with BioCRF staff via email (Joyce Wong, joycepswong@ust.hk) on the operation of equipment and the basic technique for adherent cell subculturing. The passing criteria will be provided during the training.
9. HeLa cells in a 10 cm dish will be provided for subculture evaluation. Users should bring along all other necessities (e.g., tools, reagents, and consumables) for the subculture evaluation, including but not limited to DMEM, PBS, Trypsin-EDTA, and cell culture dishes.
10. Users are allowed to book the Biosafety Cabinets (BSCs) via BioCRF’s booking system after passing the evaluation.
11. Users are required to re-submit the application form “Application for Access to Cell Culture Facility” biannually, but there is no need to attend the training and evaluation sessions upon re-submission.
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12. BioCRF’s cell culture facility is operated on a first-come-first-served basis. No priorities will be given to a particular department/ research group.