Contamination and Inoculation

Cliff Lee, BioWork instructor at Johnston County Community College, discusses common causes of contamination including:

• Microbes
• Pyrogens
• Dust
• Spores
• Packaging
• Chemicals
• Aerosols

Aseptic technique reduces the contamination level to the acceptable limit for the product. Inoculation is adding cells to growth media. Agar plates can be inoculated to test for the presence of microbes.