The CSMI is a versatile microscope stage-incubator for cell/tissue culture work. It is designed to accommodate new rectangular disposable Chamber Slides™ and Chambered Coverglass from the Nunc Lab-Tek® series, and the Falcon® Cultureslide series from Beckton Dickinson. The CSMI, in combination with a matching low noise TC-202A temperature controller, facilitates long term maintenance of tissue or cell cultures on a microscope stage. This allows optical monitoring of dyes, micro-injection, electrical recording, and micro-manipulation for many hours or even days.

The CSMI not only facilitates the precise regulation and manipulation of bath temperature, but also supports multi-channel perfusion (up to 4 channels) and gas atmosphere maintenance, such as CO2 superfusion for pH control. The CSMI is based on a successful design of the Medical Systems PDMI-2 micro-incubator for 35 mm Petri dishes. The CSMI utilizes a Peltier thermo-electric device to regulate temperature over a wide range both above and below ambient levels. Lower temperatures (approximately 10ºC below ambient) may be obtained by using an optional cooling tube.

The CSMI fits on the stage of inverted microscopes from major microscope manufacturers including Zeiss, Nikon, Olympus and Leica. Harvard Apparatus offers custom-made rectangular adapters to these microscopes.