Cell Counting Microscope

When using a light microscope to examine living cells you may want to calculate the cell density.

Cell counting microscope.

The charged counting chamber is then placed on the microscope stage and the counting grid is brought into focus at low power. A variety of cell counting methods exist for exactly this purpose including the hemocytometer. Cell counting is rather straightforward and requires a counting chamber called a hemocytometer a device invented by the 19 th century french anatomist louis charles malassez to perform blood cell counts. A drop of cell culture is placed in the space between the chamber and the glass cover.

A counting chamber is a microscope slide that is especially designed to enable cell counting. Again multiply by 1000 to determine cell count per ml 250 000. In that case you will need to multiply your final. Using a pipette take 100 µl of trypan blue treated cell suspension and apply to the hemocytometer.

If using a glass hemocytometer very gently fill both chambers underneath the coverslip allowing the cell suspension to be drawn out by capillary action. Sometimes you will need to dilute a cell suspension to get the cell density low enough for counting. A hemocytometer consists of a thick glass microscope slide with a grid of perpendicular lines etched in the middle.