Using a combination of MEDIAJET Petri dish filler and DOSE IT P910 peristaltic pump manufacturer, supplied by INTEGRA Biosciences AG, the Department of Medical Microbiology (IMM) (Lucerne, Switzerland) has established an effective technique for production of high quality blood agar. Determination of haemolysis type is an important diagnostic technique.

Frau Trudy Rutz, Manager Biomedical Analyst at the IMM stated “Good quality blood agar makes the determination of haemolysis type straight forward and unproblematic even for less experienced personnel like our students”. She added “Critical for the blood agar quality is the temperature of the agar blood mixture during the pouring of the agar plates”. “Therefore we were looking for a media preparation system which would enable us to minimise this denaturation due to overheating as much as possible”.

Using an INTEGRA Biosciences MEDIACLAVE media preparator the IMM was able to optimise the process by setting and maintaining the dispensing temperature to 45 °C. However the true innovation in the IMM blood agar preparation technique was made possible by the combination of the MEDIAJET Petri dish filler and the DOSE IT peristaltic pumping.