Patent 7491526 was granted and assigned to Olympus Group on February, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Contamination by dust particles, bacteria and so forth in each processing step can be reduced by a simple constitution. A culture vessel is used in which a medium vessel in which a medium is sealed and a waste medium vessel capable of housing the fluid in a main culture vessel are connected to the main culture vessel by connecting lines capable of restricting the flow of fluid between them in a state in which they are sealed from the outside. A culture apparatus is composed in which the inner volume of each vessel is variable, and is provided with a case provided with indentations for housing each vessel, and a pressing means that contracts the vessels housed in the indentations by applying external pressure.