HypoxyLab™ Hypoxia chamber bench-top physiological oxygen incubator and workstation
Your incubator says 1% oxygen. Your cells are experiencing something else entirely.
2. PASEvery time you open the door, every percentage-based reading, every unverified assumption compounds into data you can't fully defend.
HypoxyLab controls the oxygen your cells actually see, in mmHg not approximations, so your results reflect biology and not equipment limitation.
We usually respond within one business day (or sooner!)
Cited in over 59 Peer Reviewed Articles
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So it fits on a standard lab bench without sacrificing the performance of a full-size workstation.
So your cells experience the conditions they would in living tissue, not a laboratory approximation.
For true hypoxia/physoxia, giving you results that are reproducible across any lab, anywhere in the world.
With industry-leading gas consumption, keeping nitrogen running costs significantly lower without any compromise on precision.
So cultures stay protected from contamination without additional equipment or setup.
Comfortable enough for extended sessions and reducing the risk of shortcuts that compromise your environment.
Eliminates requirement for air lock, so you can transfer samples in seconds without disrupting internal oxygen levels.
Simple operation, so you spend less time learning the system and more time on your research.
For in situ dissolved oxygen measurements, verifying what your cells actually experience, not just atmosphere readings.
Giving you two years of manufacturer-backed confidence as standard.
No costly options or extras required for operation, so you have everything you need from day one.
Advanced Bench-top Physiological Workstation
Watch the HypoxyLab in action: Precision control meets ergonomic efficiency.
Pricing is based on system configuration, application requirements, and support needs.
Most customers purchase a tailored solution aligned to their research model and funding structure.
From initial enquiry through to an installed system in your lab, here is how a HypoxyLab™ purchase typically unfolds.
A short conversation about your application, target oxygen range and workflow lets us prepare a tailored quote for your lab.
We guide your team through specifications, lead times, shipping terms and any institutional documentation needed to move the purchase forward.
From confirmed order, your HypoxyLab™ is typically delivered within 2 to 4 weeks, with full support through installation and beyond.
We usually respond within one business day (or sooner!)
A side-by-side look at how HypoxyLab™ stacks up against leading alternatives on the features that matter most to day-to-day hypoxia research.
| Feature |
HypoxyLab™
Oxford Optronix
|
Competitor A
Leading alternative
|
Competitor B
Leading alternative
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxygen control mode | Partial pressure (mmHg) and % | % only | % only |
| Integrated HEPA filtration |
Standard
|
Optional add-on | Not specified |
| Active humidity control | Active nebuliser, up to 85% at 37°C | Active nebuliser, up to 85% at 37°C | Up to 80% |
| Sample transfer | Smart letter-box hatch (standard) | Optional interlock add-on | Optional interlock add-on |
|
Live cell probing gland
(for in-chamber O₂ measurement via OxyLite™)
|
Yes
|
||
| Touchscreen control | Full-colour touchscreen | Monochrome | Limited |
| Working volume | 130 L | 180 L | 180 L |
| Bench footprint | 0.30 m² | 0.53 m² | 0.57 m² |
| System weight | 28 kg | 59 kg | 77 kg |
| 24-month warranty |
Standard
|
Conditional on annual servicing | Not stated |
Some researchers wonder whether a hatch-based access model trades control for convenience. In practice, the opposite tends to be true. A traditional airlock often introduces enough friction that users batch movements, interrupt established workflows, or handle samples in less controlled ways to avoid the overhead. The letter-box hatch removes that pressure, so routine transfers happen quickly and predictably.
There will always be a brief atmospheric disturbance during access, but oxygen conditions within the culture media respond far more slowly than the chamber headspace. Over the short interval of a typical transfer, that transient at the chamber level is unlikely to translate into a meaningful shift in cellular oxygenation or biology.
A note on use: the hatch is a transfer feature, not a holding area. Samples left inside the hatch rather than moved fully into the working chamber would not experience the full controlled environment, and extended dwell times there could affect cell viability. Used as intended, the hatch supports quick, convenient access without the burden of a traditional airlock.
For many labs, a 130 L chamber is not a downsize but a smarter fit. A more compact working volume reaches stable conditions faster, uses substantially less gas to maintain, and is more practical to run on a day-to-day basis. Teams get into experiments sooner and spend less keeping them going.
There is also a strong case for using the chamber size you actually need. Rather than investing in one oversized workstation and running everything under a single set of conditions, two HypoxyLab™ systems can run two different oxygen environments in parallel. For many groups that is a far more efficient use of bench space, gas supply and budget than a single large chamber.
HypoxyLab™ is not a reduced-capacity alternative. It is a purpose-built platform for labs that want precise environmental control without the cost, gas consumption and footprint of a much larger system.
Some hypoxia chambers offer a secondary atmospheric monitor as a way to cross-check headspace conditions. HypoxyLab™ takes a different approach. A built-in sensor gland accepts our optional OxyLite™ fibre-optic probes, allowing teams to measure dissolved oxygen directly within the culture media or at the level of the cells themselves.
For most biological work, what really matters is not the chamber headspace reading but the oxygenation the cells are actually experiencing. OxyLite™ probing reads exactly there. That makes it more than a verification tool. It is a more biologically meaningful measurement, and one that can be tracked continuously throughout an experiment rather than confirmed at a single point.
A secondary chamber monitor tells you what the workstation is doing. OxyLite™ tells you what the cells are actually experiencing. For most labs, that is the measurement that matters.
At one end of the spectrum, simple hypoxia incubators maintain conditions but offer little support for actively working with cells. At the other, fully integrated gloved-arm workstations deliver the strictest possible handling control, which can be the right answer for the most demanding continuous-culture protocols where samples remain under maintained conditions for weeks at a time.
HypoxyLab™ sits deliberately in between. It supports both short and long-term studies, gives precise environmental control during routine experiments, and offers the ergonomics, footprint and cost profile that suit most laboratory workflows. For groups already running a gloved-arm workstation for their most rigorous work, HypoxyLab™ is often the complementary platform for everything else.
HypoxyLab™ is the right answer for the wide majority of hypoxia work. Where a different format would genuinely serve a particular protocol better, we will say so.
HypoxyLab™ is designed not just to maintain conditions, but to let your team actively work with samples inside a precisely controlled environment. Partial pressure control, integrated HEPA filtration and active humidification deliver the stability and reproducibility that simpler incubator-style approaches cannot match.
We usually respond within one business day (or sooner!)
The HypoxyLab™ is built to support multi-year research programmes, and our service offering is structured to keep it running reliably for the full lifetime of the system.
A two-yearly schedule keeps maintenance proportionate to what the system actually needs, predictable for your team to plan around, and aligned with how a working laboratory operates.
For customers based outside the UK, service is delivered through a wider network of regional partners and distributors. Routine maintenance does not depend on shipping the system back to Oxford, so procurement teams can plan with confidence regardless of where the lab is located.
Service is structured to support customers over the long term, not just at the point of installation. If you would like the full service documentation for your team or institution to review, just ask.
We usually respond within one business day (or sooner!)