It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of the world’s plant diversity depends on botanical research. According to recent modeling form from the University of California, Davis, in the next 80 years up to 16% of all plant species will lose 90% of their habitat, massively increasing their risk of extinction. The development of tissue culture and cryopreservation methods are essential to ex situ conservation, which will support the preservation of plants outside of their natural habitats.

Priorclave North America is proud to support the living collections, research, and preservation work at The Huntington Library, Museum, and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino, CA. The Huntington relies on its horizontal 100L Priorclave autoclave to protect the integrity of its research methods and produce validated, reliable preservation protocols. The Huntington research division runs several loads per week, preparing media for hundreds of individual explants, so researchers can optimize the growing media mix and tissue culture protocol for each species or subspecies.

Similarly, the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens herbarium was founded in 2014 to document and preserve the plant biodiversity of coastal Maine and its broader ecoregions. Scientists at the Gardens conserve rare plant species through ex situ conservation. For example, the Garden’s milkweed collection facilitates study and conservation of the 10 milkweed species native to Maine. This doesn’t just protect an essential component of the state’s ecology: this milkweed is the sole food source for monarch butterflies that annually migrate to Maine from Mexico, serving as the critical nursery for the “super generation” that is key to the health of the entire North American monarch population.

What’s the Best Autoclave for Your Research Needs?

The research-ready, non-jacketed Priorclave EH100 autoclave is an industry leader in water and energy efficiency. It is also a workhorse, providing years of reliable service, reducing the downtime that is a thorn in the side of every researcher.

Owing to historic purchasing patterns, many research labs (especially those attached to academic institutions) have relied on medical-grade autoclaves and sterilizers. These are optimized for hospital use, and include design features that are vital when handling instruments used in medical procedures, but stand up poorly to the varied demands of a research setting. The result is frequent downtime and increased maintenance demands.

Research-grade Priorclave autoclaves are simply designed, with robust features like an in-tank heater and fully programmable cycles. All of this is aimed at creating a machine that completes research tasks more quickly and reliably, with less time spent offline for maintenance and repairs. There are some Priorclaves still running strong after more than 20 years of regular use.

Priorclave is proud to support the important work of botanical research by building reliable, user-friendly, ecologically responsible autoclaves that can sterilize water and growth media for plant propagation, process waste loads, sterilize lab tools and glassware (like pipettes, beakers, petri dishes, forceps, and cutting implements), and more—everything you need for tissue culture research or cryopreservation of samples for long term germplasm storage.

What Autoclave Features Do You Need?

To make the most of time and resources, it’s important to select the most reliable, efficient machine with the features botanical researchers need to hit the ground running. We find that most plant labs are tending toward 100L autoclaves with the following features:

• Front loading: Flexible, easy to access, great for vessels and media loads.
• Load sensed process timing: Important if you process large containers of media (larger than 1 liter) or dense loads. This feature uses a wandering load sensing probe so that the autoclave can delay the start of the sterilizing timer until the entire load has reached the desired sterilizing temperature.
• Timed freesteaming: Removes the air burden from difficult loads like plastic waste. Also good for melting pre-sterilized growth media.
• Media warming: Keeps media sterile and ready-to-pour (even overnight) by cycling the chamber temperature until the door is opened. This option can be added to any cycle program and avoids the risk of caramelized, gelled, or spoiled media.
• Delayed start: Allows you to schedule the beginning of a sterilization program up to 24 hours in advance.
• Fully programmable: No need to settle for the preset cycle that is most like what you want, or to babysit the autoclave. Priorclave controls support creating complex repeating cycles and loading your choice of cycles into preset memory. Any cycle can be set for easy One Button Start.
• In-chamber electric heater: Industry-leading efficiency in water and electricity usage.
• Vacuum option: Excellent for soil sterilization. Adding just one pre-cycle vacuum pulse improves sterilization by about 90% for porous loads, deep beakers, and long or narrow items. Using three pre-cycle vacuum pulses virtually guarantees successful sterilization.

Why Priorclave?

There is one way to be sure that your autoclave will perform to your specifications: Have it built to them. Our team will help you explore your sterilization needs and determine the right model and configuration for your tasks, facilities, and requirements. That autoclave will then be hand built, from start to finish, in our London factory.

Our goal is to provide educators, researchers, and innovators around the globe with the autoclave they deserve, one that is:

Reliable. Flexible. Programmable. Affordable. Safe.

But most importantly, we want them to have the Support they need to get their work done.

Ready to discuss your equipment needs? Reach out to us today.