Smart Extension of Incubation Capacity

During my PhD difficulties already started in a standard heat-shock transformation. I used an ice bucket for the 4 °C steps, even though knowing that the ice bucket not necessarily has or keeps the 4 °C depending on the surrounding temperature. Then I used a thermal mixer for the shock at 42 °C and afterwards I went into the incubation room, sticking my tubes to a sticky pad with additional adhesive film having them mixed at 37 °C for the recovering phase. A very annoying process I had to go through multiple times a week.

A smarter option is to have a SmartExtender that fits your thermal mixer and takes e.g., 12 additional 1.5 mL tubes. Ideally you can program a second temperature. Like this you can incubate samples in the SmartExtender, let’s say at 42 °C and mix/incubate samples at 37 °C at the same time. So, heat-shock of multiple samples can be done by just putting tubes from heat zone (42°C) to recover zone (37°C) on the ThermoMixer ® C without walking around and loosing time.

Or you can incubate samples at two different temperatures, 15 °C in the block and 28 °C in the SmartExtender. Either for one, or two different protocols, or persons working in the lab. Or you choose to use a plate and tubes…whatever you need, you can incubate two different samples at two different temperatures. Basically, you can have an incubation device and a thermal mixer in one.

Only open question: How to reliably keep 4 °C? Well, here we recommend an ice-free IsoTherm System ® of which the block for holding samples is cooled in the fridge and then placed in a polystyrene bucket. This system keeps the temperature more reliable, contamination reduced and drop-free compared to ice.