A microbiology lab is where microbiologists study small life forms like bacteria, viruses, and fungi. It contains specialized supplies and equipment such as autoclaves, incubators, and nutrient gels. The lab is clean and sterile, and scientists may wear special overalls.
A microbiology lab, or lab, is the primary place you can find a microbiologist who doesn’t work in the field. It is in the laboratory that most of the testing, culturing and research takes place. This location contains the supplies and equipment needed for these tasks as well as providing an extremely clean and sterile workplace.
To understand what goes on in a microbiology lab, you need to understand what a microbiologist does. A microbiologist studies very small life forms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi. These life forms live everywhere: in the soil, in the air, in the water and even inside animals. Many of these life forms are so small they cannot be seen with the naked eye and are called microorganisms. Often, a microbiologist will need to separate and grow microorganisms to better see, study, and experience them. All these activities take place in the laboratory.
Most look like any other biology or chemistry lab. They will likely have long laboratory benches where scientists can easily set up their equipment and work. There will be large, partially transparent fume hoods to protect scientists from any dangerous experiments, although fume hoods in a microbiology lab may contain special ultraviolet (UV) lights that impede and kill some microorganisms.
A large device called an autoclave that sterilizes equipment will be placed somewhere in or near the lab so scientists can do their jobs without contaminating their samples. Also featured will be common lab equipment such as microscopes, test tubes, scales, Bunsen burners, dryers, hot plates, pipettes, vortexers (whirlpools), books, and computers. Some labs will have special vents and seals to keep them clean. These laboratories may also require those entering them to wear special clean overalls, although this type will not be encountered by most entry-level microbiologists.
Microbiology laboratories usually have specialized supplies and equipment beyond that of traditional laboratories. It will often have multiple types of refrigerators, some of which store samples and others store nutrients and “clean” supplies. There may be large sealed buckets called fermenters that are used to grow the yeast. Different types of nutrient gels called agars will be in the lab.
The gel will eventually be poured into sterile Petri dishes to create agar plates on which to grow the microorganisms. There will likely be large devices called incubators that heat their contents and can even mix them gently. Microbiology laboratories specializing in the study of viruses, bacteria, fungi and other areas will have specialized additional equipment. This equipment may include cell counters, centrifuges, microplate readers, and scanning electron microscopes (SEMs).
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