OxyDish™

"...an anaerobic chamber you can hold in your hand."

Oxyrase, Inc. developed and patented the innovative OxyDish™ in the late 1990s.  The novel design built on previous advancements achieved by the “Brewer’s Lid” and provided microbiologists a more cost effective method for creating and controlling an anaerobic environment when growing anaerobes.  The OxyDish™ often eliminates the complications and expense of jars, bags, catalysts, anaerobic incubators and chambers. 

We offer the OxyDish™ for use with your own media, see ordering information below.  When combining your media with Oxyrase For Agar™, the OxyDish™ maintains a self-contained, renewable environment for growing anaerobe microorganisms in an aerobic, or standard O₂ incubator.

We are also pleased to offer several “pre-poured” media types in this unique culture dish.  You may find more information on these products under OxyPlates™.

Download our easy user guide for opening and using the OxyDish™.

Learn More About the OxyDish™

Working with anaerobes poses many problems. Often the culture dishes for these microbes must be incubated in a controlled gaseous environment that lacks oxygen, or at least most of the oxygen, found in air. This is frequently accomplished by placing the culture or Petri dish containing medium inside a container that is sealed from the outside atmosphere. Microbiologists have historically accomplished this using a sealable bag or jar (i.e., "Brewer Jar") along with a chemical that, when activated, removes the oxygen in the container.  Additionally, higher volume labs have utilized, a sealed table-top chamber evacuated and flushed with inert gases. The microbiologist works with the culture dishes inside of this chamber through ports fitted with gloves.

Unfortunately work with microaerophiles and anaerobes under these conditions is labor intensive, difficult, expensive, and time consuming. The microbiologist is often frustrated by having to wait for the slowest growing microbe in order to retrieve all culture dishes from a bag or jar.  A failure in the system, or exposure to oxygen, can be catastrophic for all of the microbial isolates inside.

The OxyDish™ was developed to address many of the limitations associated with these techniques.  By improving an old technology (the Brewer Lid), modifying it for mass production and optimizing it to work with the Oxyrase® Enzyme System this unique design provides many advantages for growing anaerobes:

• The dish top is specially designed with an inner ring that forms a tight seal against the media surface. This seal can be easily broken and reformed creating an anaerobic environment each time.
• Each dish is light in weight and is designed to be stacked without crushing the media in the lower dishes of the stack.
• The dishes are designed for single use.
• When used with Oxyrase for Agar™ the media reacts with the oxygen trapped in the headspace removing the oxygen and allowing microorganisms affected by the presence of oxygen to typically grow on the media surface within 24 to 48 in an aerobic incubator. Any oxygen that intrudes into the dish is removed by ongoing action of the Oxyrase® Enzyme System.
• The OxyDish™ can be used with virtually any media type.
• The OxyDish™ significantly increases the microbiologist's efficiency by reducing and simplifying the number of manipulations required to work with anaerobes. Furthermore, each culture dish can be treated individually allowing the user to make decisions on each sample, rather than having to wait for the slowest growing isolate in a group of culture dishes.

"effective in creating an anaerobic atmosphere and supporting the growth of anaerobic bacteria"

                                                      ~ Journal of Clinical Microbiology