Lab Equipment

A scientist’s lab equipment is his set of tools – without them, we could do nothing but hypothesize. Though different labs will have different sets of tools, there are some pieces of lab equipment that are so useful, one rarely finds a lab without them. Examples of such general lab tools include computers, freezers, incubators, shakers, hot plates, glassware, plasticware, analytical balances, pipettors and tips, pH meters, fume hoods, and several types of microscopes. More specialized pieces of lab equipment might include an autoclave, a cell culture or tissue culture hood/workstation, a spectrophotometer with cuvettes (if needed; some do not use cuvettes), and a thermocycler (PCR machine). Even further specialized lab equipment could include DNA sequencing equipment, a mass spectrometer, a flow cytometer, imaging systems, microtomes, surgical instruments, histology equipment, or electrophysiological equipment such as patch-clamp amplifiers, pipette pullers, and analysis software.