What is the OB1 Perfusion System for Cell Culture and Analysis?

The Elveflow OB1 is a pressure-driven flow controller that keeps cultured cells viable under continuous medium renewal while you image them live or measure what they consume and secrete. Clean gas pressurises a sealed reservoir and pushes medium through your culture vessel, so no moving part ever touches the liquid and the flow is stable and pulseless from the first second. Set a pressure and medium flows; add a flow sensor and the OB1 holds an exact flow rate for you, anywhere from 0.1 µL/min to 500 mL/min.

▶ Watch on YouTube: setting up the OB1 pressure controller

Why pressure-driven flow for cell culture?

• Pulseless, controlled shear: With no moving part in the liquid, the flow carries no pulse — up to 20× steadier than a syringe or peristaltic pump — holding cells at a steady wall shear stress and keeping live-imaging fields free of drift and vibration.
• Millisecond reactivity: Pressure is applied directly, so flow reaches steady state almost at once, instead of the minutes a syringe pump can take to build pressure in soft tubing and chambers.
• No contact with your medium: The pump sits on the gas side and never touches the medium, so it adds no dead volume and no contamination — only your reservoir, tubing and vessel are ever wetted.
• No volume limit: Pressure drives medium from a reservoir of any size, from a millilitre to several litres, so long runs are a matter of reservoir size, not a fixed syringe.
• Reproducible conditions: A feedback loop holds the same flow rate — and the same shear — run to run: set 5 µL/min today and you get 5 µL/min next week.
• Up to four channels: Drive one to four independent lines at once, each with its own medium and flow rate, to compare conditions side by side or feed many identical cultures in parallel.

Study cells under controlled, repeatable conditions

Hold a defined flow rate — and through it a defined wall shear stress — or switch the medium and add reagents at set times, then study the cellular response. Because the flow is steady and repeatable, the condition is the variable you test, not a source of noise. Add an MFS or BFS flow sensor to lock the rate: enter a target, the sensor measures the real flow, and the OB1 trims its pressure until the two match.

Image cells live under continuous perfusion

Non-contact, pulseless delivery suits live-cell microscopy — the culture stays under continuous medium renewal with no pump vibration in the field. The Elveflow Smart Interface sends a TTL trigger to start acquisition the moment the flow changes, or takes a trigger from the microscope to start an injection, so your images and your medium changes stay on one clock.

Monitor cellular activity in real time

Place an inline assay downstream of the culture and follow what the cells consume or secrete as it happens — a metabolite such as glucose, or a secreted factor — with no discrete sampling. Steady flow keeps that measurement quantitative and comparable across the whole run.

Automate medium changes, stimulation and imaging

Program medium exchanges, timed reagent additions and imaging triggers once, and the software runs the whole protocol hands-off, so a multi-day experiment runs the same way whether or not someone is at the bench.

• Long runs, unattended: set the flow and scheduled medium exchanges over hours or days and walk away.
• Timed reagent injection: switch solutions on a schedule, including the 2 a.m. step nobody wants to be there for.
• Microscope sync: trigger acquisition on a flow change, or start an injection on a trigger from the microscope.
• Push–pull level control: run one line in and one line out at matched rates to hold a constant medium volume in an open chamber or well.

SDKs are available for Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW and C++ for building the OB1 into a larger automated setup.