Incucyte^® Live-Cell Analysis Systems by Sartorius Group

"It is easy to use and reliable for the data. I use it is my routine experiments. In addition, by using fluorescent signal expressed in cells, it saves tons of money for reagents that I have to use otherwise."

"Very easy to use and consistent results. While a little bit of troubleshooting is needed, it is quite easy to navigate through the software and with so many options it is easy to adjust to the experimental needs."

"Very efficient and easy to use. However, I have some concerns about the resolution for the use we are making. Indeed we found that the resolution doesn't match does acquired using a high-end confocal microscope or STED-like microscope, thus do not allow us to properly assess the interaction between the structure of interest. For other applications (that do not require a very high resolution), the microscope would perfectly fit the needs."

"I'm talking about the micropipettes and weighing balance it's very sensitive and easy to use. It is giving accurate data and reading are so good."

"Great to use"

"We found the product to be easy to use and compatible with the kind of assays we are performing. After sales support is also very much appreciated. We are also satisfied with the end results till now."

"Great product"

"The incucyte is so close to greatness, but falls short in a few critical area. 1. Repeatability of the imaging location is below expectation. We need to post-process movies to make them viewable. 2. As a long time microscopist, it baffles me that one cannot set a specific exposure time that the system will use in every frame, rather than try to optimize exposure. 3. Particularly at low cell density or low signal intensity, the system has challenges staying in focus. Other systems that I use (e.g. Nikon's perfect focus) are more consistent. 4. When tracking cells, it is generally helpful to label nuclei, and DAPI/Hoescht 33342 are still be best (SNR, efficacy, low toxicity) probes on the market to do this. So the system really needs 4-color imaging (DAPI/480/555/650). 5. Data transfer from the incucyte over cat 5 ethernet cable seems oddly slow."

"Great tool to observe real-time cell killing kinetics"

"Organoid mode is a saver for us. It helped us to visualize, characterize and compare multiple organoids through time course with various species. We even use it for imaging cells that need to be on thick matrix coated wells/plates. The surface marker characterization is also achievable with this system. The analysis tool is a handy beginner's tool to assist quantification; it might not be able to do everything, but it's adequate for basic needs."

"Extremely effective, high quality publication data generated, easy to use, I will highly recommend, very economic, high rating"

"The product is very good"

"Great equipment with so many potential uses! After-sales communication with vendors was not as smooth as before-sales. But overall very pleased!"

"We have been using the Incucyte machine for over 1 year now and I have to say that this machine by far is the best and easiest to use for functional assay as well as for screening of libraries. The quality of the output is great and I would surely recommend this to my collaborators and networking conference attendees. This product is extremely user friendly and it has many applications for cell biology research. Incucyte systems are very reliable and give high performance. Instrument software is very good and easy to use. It is used for many cell culture based applications and always shows great results with accuracy and reproducibility."

"We have been using the Incucyte machine for over 3 years now and I have to say that this machine by far is the best and easiest to use for functional assay as well as for screening of libraries. The quality of the output is great and I would surely recommend this to my collaborators and networking conference attendees."

"This product is extremely user friendly and it has many application for cell biology research."

"I have purchased several of these systems over the last 5-7 years. Quite reliable (a few minor service calls) but high quality, reproducible data with good software support."

"The great one cell analysis system."

"Incucyte systems are very reliable and give high performance. Instrument software is very good and easy to use. It is used for many cell culture based applications and always shows great results with accuracy and reproducibility."

"Great for live imaging to follow events in real time. Excellent definition to assess cell death and cellular structure live."

"User friendly UI. Customer support is reliable when issues do arise. Warranty is helpful."

"Great machine for automated cell imaging. Reached out for technical help with image analysis and received quick and helpful response."

"Very useful in a cell culture laboratories dedicated to anti-tumor therapy studies. I highly recommend it for proliferation and cytotoxicity studies. The cell culture images (4x, 10x) have an excellent publication grade quality. Easy to work and analyze results, after some practice."

"The product is really simple to set up and use. It's becoming a work horse for our lab. It gives great replicable data and is providing us with very insightful real time analysis of different treatment of live human primary cells in culture. This is enabling us to screen for various putative novel drugs and help us better understand signaling cascades downstream after addition of any biological agent."

"The Incucyte SX5 is an easy-to-use live-cell imaging technology, saving our scientists time in both experimental set-up and monitoring whilst providing exceptional, previously unobtainable readouts. Protocols for a wide range of lab-based assays are freely available and easy to follow. Many of our scientists have already switched many of their traditional lab-based assays to use the Incucyte technology instead. The ability to monitor your cells in real-time remotely is a hugely attractive feature to our scientists especially during this pandemic. The technology provides user-friendly built-in software to easily evaluate your experimental data offering a range of options to present your data graphically, via FACS plots or in movies – all of which are easily transferable to other software for presentation or publication purposes. Both the sales reps and application specialists were extremely helpful during our purchase and training and continue to provide support/advice to our scientists for their individual experimental needs. The fact that our Incucyte has been in non-stop use since our purchase is testament to our scientists' satisfaction with this technology and we would not hesitate in recommending this technology to other labs."

"Our S3 had service-requiring issues almost immediately. Three total calls within the first 12 months, during a period in my new lab where it was only being occasionally used. Twice for the mechanics of the drawer, and once when they had to replace the motherboard. Then, right after our warranty expired, the machine needed the same exact repair as our second service trip, which would cost $7000. For a $100K machine, this level of service need is completely unacceptable. I cannot recommend this machine or this company to colleagues, which is a shame, because the promise of what the IncuCyte could do is very high."

"Incucyte S3 imaging system is a user free, reliable, ready to use, excellent instrument for cell biology research."

"High quality results of the cell culture inside the incubator. Highly recommended to any laboratory doing cell culture. Straightforward to use. Reasonably intuitive."

"Product is great and now an indispensable piece of equipment for our research. Initially our lab was the main user and now several groups use this. We have several publications based on the findings from the use of this machine."

"Our department has been raving about the Incucyte, it is so simple to use and puts your mind at ease that when you put your cells in you can get easy reliable data. It really is self explanatory to use and almost all of our labs have used it now and had great responses."

"Very effective but bottlenecks analysis. Difficult to analyze across groups. Graphing software needs to be better. Need better informatics tools and more templates to utilize from the website and in the graphing tool. We also have a very tough time going back and forth between plates and also back and forth between the Incucyte and more conventional killing assays such as chromium and ldh. More small molecule examples would be great. Moe expertise using non-adherent cell types too."

"It is easy to use and has repeatable results. The service is wonderful."

"Excellent performance and application wise performance is very good."

"Archived a lot of success with high quality of data. Published high impact factor papers including patents. The data reproducibility is highly regarded."

"The product is very easy to use and gives reproducible results. Image resolution is not great, so smaller structures (like vesicles) can not be studied. We adapt to the available functions, but more resolution would increase the number of applications."

"This system can take pictures of your cells at set intervals, it also has filters for fluorescent imaging."

"We can do a lot of assays with live cells, proliferation, migration, assays with fluorochromes - it's very flexible. The system for analysis is very simple. There is also good after-sale care."

"Add on for my review from 19 March 2020. I have to revise my rating for the category "After sales service". At the time of writing this former review, we did not get any response after having received a service offer for our defective controller. However, this has now changed completely. The defective controller was picked up, shipped to UK and returned within 8 working days. This was mainly triggered by our local Sartorius service people. They did a great job. The machine runs now properly again. The best: This service was not charged - again, due to the engagement of these service people. This, and the profound help by the application scientist, made me readjusting the rating for the "After sales care"."

"I like that many protocols and application notes are available to help setting up relevant assays. Software is great."

"I used IncuCyte to perform scratch migration assays and it really made my life easier compared to manually counting cells or calculating migrated area. The quality of the photos is absolutely great (at least for brightfield). It would be nice if the software could calculate the number of individual cells (counting) alongside the migrated area. The photos are mostly reproducible (from time to time I faced small issues, but overall quite consistent)."

"The strength of the IncuCyte is definitely the software package included. E.g. operating the machine and data processing are easy, even when done by people who only have a superficial knowledge of microscopy. The hardware could be improved, primarily in terms of quality, reliability and flexibility. Flexibility: e.g. compatibility with higher resolution objectives. Quality: e.g. this drawer is simply bad for a €150k device. Reliability: e.g. our machine broke down twice within two years since purchase. First time, after 1.5 years the scans where out of focus - service fixed it (they did a great job). Second time, after 2.2 years the hard disk of the steering unit cracked. Asked for service and got an offer, which we accepted more than one month ago - nothing has happened since that time, no answer from Sartorius how to proceed - except for one sales representative, who really seems to take care of the customers in his region. The machine is still not serviced, not even in the line to be serviced. The service offer has expired during this time and we urgently need the raw data stored on the steering unit for publication. Reproducibility: great and consistent with the ease of handling."

"The product was quite easy to set up - you simply put it in the incubator and virtually everything can be controlled wirelessly from the comfort of your laptop. The user interface is also quite straightforward compared to other scientific instruments, and it offers great flexibility in plate/dish type. The ability to consistently image cells at regular intervals under both bright field conditions and to detect red/green fluorescent markers proved invaluable for my lab's research and allowed us to collect quality results in half the time that it would have taken otherwise (and with much greater precision). Additionally, the technicians at Sartorius were extremely accommodating of our needs and addressed all of our issues."

"Pretty good, I like it. It gave us more real-time resolution, which can't be provided by other current instruments from various companies."

"I am the scientific manager of a screening facility (KISSf for kinase inhibitor screening facility). It is a structure open to all chemists in France and abroad to test the effects of their drugs on our selection of kinases involved in human pathologies. Some of these lead compounds are currently in preclinical study (acute kidney injuries, acute hepatitis, protection against cell death in neurodegenerative diseases) and clinical trial (cystic fibrosis). At our screening facility, we use the IncuCyte S3 reader to automatically monitor cells in real time. In addition, we have developed 3D culture models in order to reproduce the tumor microenvironment. 3D-spheroid assays are now available on our screening facility. The IncuCyte S3 was crucial for us to establish new middle-throughput assays and provide new “phenotypic profiling services” that we can include in one package of assays for our customers. I give excellent marks (from 4 to 5) because this equipment is exactly what we needed!"

"The instrument is quite easy to use once you learn how to manage the software. It delivers great reproducible results. It speeds up many time-consuming biological assays. In particular, we really appreciated it for proliferation (e.g. IC50 calculation of drugs) and migration assays, but also spheroids analysis and immune cell-mediated killing assays."

"This system is easy to use and can get good result. You should purchase and use this system so you can get reproducible results."

"The Incucyte S3 Live Cell Analysis System is a great asset to our research group. We can perform numerous cell based assays using this system that directly impact our drug discovery pipeline. The system generates quantitative, reproducible data, plus provides sharp high quality images of cells. It has a wide variety of applications, including spheroid assays, phrodo dye based assays, cell proliferation, confluence and many more. I love the ease of use and data output from this instrument."

"I was able to reproduce my data so well. Someone else used my protocol without me and everything was consistent. The instrument itself is extremely easy to use and set up."

"Very user friendly and efficient. The data quality is good!"

"It's easy to use and delivers reproducible results. However some images within one well are often out of focus and always have to be removed manually. After we had 2 serious problems (broken drawer + out of focus) it took really long to get it fixed and and to get/stay in touch with our contact person."

"It is possible to acquire high quality data, which is highly reproducible. The analysis is very easy and handy. However, the instrument software sometimes causes problems: the camera cannot be found, therefore no pictures are taken, and this happens during the night so no reaction is possible... The technical service is really good and efficient, always very friendly and comes very fast after being contacted. Thanks for that!"

"It’s easy to use and analysis is easy. I think the reagents are over priced. Results have not always been reproducible and some time points have issues in imaging. We can eliminate those during analysis, but it would be nice if it didn’t happen in the first place. Customer service is excellent."

"Very easy to use instrument, once the dyes and the conditions are calibrated the results are very reproducible and informative, introducing theme components in many drug sensitivity assays of cancer cells. Some of the dyes are a bit expensive and usually the green works better than the red. But overall very good."

"The amount of fluorescent protein expressed by the cells is measured by this device. The ability to measure six 96-well plates simultaneously enables high-throughput screening."

"Being able to quantify the kinetics of cells death with an in situ assay is a game changer."

"Software needs to be bit more user friendly. Need edit options for vessels."

"This product has been highly effective for measuring high-throughput growth curves of tumor cells. We have extensively utilized it for testing affects of compounds as well as gene expression on tumor growth and invasion. Additionally, it had been essential in testing spheroid formation and growth. The ease of use and amount of data generated from the product are very valuable considering the initial input cost for our department."

"By far one of the best investments of my program for completing our SOW while also learning top of the line software/analyses."

"The product is well-suited depending on the application. T cell counts are accurate and reproducible. Phrodo-based products can give false positive in dying cells. The system is great and has a huge potential if single-mode analysis is further developed. Human-IgG1 products are not yet available and will be very helpful for therapeutics testing. Price is good for the quality, regarding the hardware and software. However, consumables are expensive and in most cases needed for the experiment (label-free analysis will be a nice implementation)."

"The Live-Cell Analysis Sytem has been very useful for monitoring immune cell killing, cell proliferation, and drug treatment on target cells. Being able to generate killing profiles has helped speed up research and have better understanding of our in vitro cultures and kinetics. The interface of the IncuCyte isn't intuitive at times. Icons can be confusing. Analysis templates can be difficult to establish for new users and take time to learn. Once the software and settings are mastered, the instrument is very powerful and results in meaningful data."

"The IncuCyte facilitates characterization of our tagged cell lines by being able to monitor cells in high-quality over several days. We still need to get familiar with the analysis software to be able to get fully benefit from the system. We are using 8-well Ibidi slides quite often, but it is not possible to add a layout for them. This only works for other formats."

"It is easy to learn how to use the instrument. There is a bit of learning curve for analysis, but the software is still very user friendly. It's limitation is the availability of the colors. It would be great if there is a more expensive version with more colors available."

"The Incucyte instrument is a fantastic tool to analyze prolifeartion, migration, invasion and chemootaxis of cells. It gives you very reproducible data. In addition, you can trust the results because you see all time points and the course of all data online."

"Results have been reproducible, and the images are high quality. Like any instrument, it takes some time to optimize a protocol for each specific assay and cell type, but once optimized, it works reliably. The convenience of scheduling different time-points for automated imaging frees up time for other experiments, and reduces experiment burden on weekends. The software is intuitive, but has a bug that occasionally causes it to become unresponsive when setting up a complex experiment. A quick restart of the software resolves the issue. Due to the volume and high quality of images, the memory will run out faster than expected with frequent use, but the process for exporting the data from the IncuCyte to make more room is easy and painless. Overall, a fantastic instrument with highly customizable workflow."

"I am very happy with using this system for simple everyday experiments like cell growth and cell death. However, I didn't manage to use it to detect fusion of myoblasts to myotubes."

"Even though the instrument is costly, it saves a lot of time and cells can be followed in real time. However, the image quality is not the best with certain type of cells, such as hepatocytes and cells which are not totally flat."

"The instrument is very easy to use. I use it in many applications, such as cell proliferation, viability/cell killing assays, and internalization assays. It helps a lot and saves time on assay development and optimization. We cannot live without it. I want another one."

"Efficient, easy-to-use and cool software to analyze and present data."

"The new IncuCyte S3 software has an improved, user-friendly surface. The IncuCyte is very suitable for semi-high throughput screening both in pharma and universities. The after sales care of IncuCyte is also very nice. Normally you will get responses from them in 24 hours, their technical support is very professional and helpful. We are satisfied with the S3."

"We have the IncuCyte Zoom and it is easy to use for monitor the live cells growth, migration. It fits different kind plate and slides. The photos quality are very good and even can make movies. When I did gene transfection, it is easy to monitor the gene expression."

"The instrument is quite easy to use. Imaging helped me to reduce the sample size, while eliminating plate-to-plate variability."

"The product is wonderful with easy to use, logical software to analyze data. Repeats are very reproducible and the results output is visually appealing (ready for use in presentations)."

"In the field of immunology, the IncuCyte S3 is must-have equipment. Not only does it enable you to perform live-cell experiments while saving time, it also allows you to measure various key characteristics, such as clustering and morphology, in a true quantitative and non-biased way. When working on primary cells, precious biological material, it is of great importance to monitor live features. The IncuCyte S3 therefore quickly becomes essential scientific gear."

"The IncuCyte ensures maximum performance in live-cell experiments, offering the capability to monitor cells in real time, and maintenance of the most vital conditions possible, with several experiments at a time."

"The system is very easy to use. We have established a reliable spheroid-killing assay, which gives us stable and interesting live-cell imaging results."

"After having some trouble with Incucyte in my lab, Sartorius tried really hard to find a way to solve our problem. With their support, we now have fully functional machine, and it’s data quality is amazing. I believe the most important point in buying a machine is how much the provider cares, even after warranty period. Malfunctioning is inevitable. It can happen to any well-made system, but the difference is how the manufacturer responds. Right after notifying them of our issue, Sartorius tried to contact me as soon as possible. They listened to my description, tried to give the most reasonable solution, and then visited to our lab and diagnosed the problem. During the process, I was fully informed and they explained what was happening. Within just a week, our matter was solved and it is now fully functional again. I’d like to say thank you to Sartorius and I strongly recommend this machine, not just because of it’s data quality, but also because of the passionate after-sales service."

"We use the Incucyte for many applications, e.g. to monitor proliferation and apoptosis after treatment with drugs, to determine IC50 values, to check for fluorescent protein expression, etc. It saves a lot of time and produces nice, publication-ready results (movies, images, growth curves). The software allows for the most common analyses (confluence, cell count) and is easy to use. The only downside is that it requires quite a lot of maintenance and sometimes we had to wait for weeks for an appointment with a technician."

"For analyzing cell death or cell proliferation over time, there is no better device on the market, as far as I can tell. Screening cell death/proliferation conditions in six plates at the same time with a live cell microscope that is so extremely easy to use makes experiments feel like playing a game. Even analyzing the data afterwards (or from home on the sofa) is so easy that it can hardly be called "work". And although the "user experience" is more similar to playing a game, than performing laborious cell culture experiments, the readout in the end is extremely good and consistent. There is no comparison to quantifying cell death using normal live-cell microscopy with an automated stage or even worse: endpoint measurements. The only thing missing is a far red channel and maybe space for even more plates and an even higher speed (unrealistic but why not?). 6 plates at once with ~12 min scan time per full plate is not bad though."

"I use the Incucyte S3 to follow the killing of cells by natural killers. It is really easy to follow the killing of fluorescent cells. Now, I even do experiments in a 384-plate format. I also follow the growth of cells, comparing transfected to parental cells in order to evaluate the impact of target expressions in different culture conditions and through time. Thanks to the IncuCyte, we discovered that in some conditions, transfected cells are growing more slowly than parental cells, but after a confluence of more than 50%, they grow faster than the parental cells and they are even able to reach a 100% of confluence (a percentage not reached in parental conditions). It would have been difficult to see without the help of the IncuCyte. Learning how to use the IncuCyte is easy - any trainee learns to use the software within few hours. We would like to implement spheroid studies in our lab. I already know that the IncuCyte will be the adequate device to measure the impact of the treatments on the spheroids. We will easily follow the size of the spheroid through time in usual culture conditions of temperature and CO2. We will also be able to use fluorescent cells to better understand what is going on into spheroids. The IncuCyte is a complete instrument, which allows a very large panel of applications in a simple manner."

"We use this instrument mostly for neurite quantification in bright-field and have found the results to be comparable to other high-content imaging systems that require fluorescent staining. This allows us to use the same culture for short-term neurite analysis as well as long-term analysis, without having to fix the plate to achieve the short-term staining. This microscope has also been instrumental in identifying time windows of phenotypes in different treatment conditions. The one downside that we've seen for neuro-related analysis is that there is a severe edge effect when a 96-well plate is imaged for more than a day or two (we never have cells in the outer wells, the edge effect extends 2-3 wells in from all sides). We have determined this is due to our incubator being on the small-side because there are issues with evaporation from the heat generated by the machine, even with extra water bins placed in the incubator."

"Personally, I am very satisfied with the product. Reproducible data was obtained across experiments. It is easy to use and analyze the data. In general, the products are a bit expensive and it may be important to consider the price offer for potential users."

"We use the IncuCyte S3 Live-Cell Analysis System mainly for cell migration analysis. This system allows us to evaluate cell migration, invasion, or cell motility on a 96-well format. Scratch wound and chemotaxis assays are easy to reproduce and yield reliable results."

"Sample preparation and instrument set up are fairly straightforward, especially if you follow the manufacturer's instructions and already have target cells that express a red or a green fluorescent protein. Data analysis is more complex because it requires selecting representative images to train the software, and also involves creating custom filters to minimize background fluorescence. That said, as long as you apply the same type of analysis to your controls and your experimental samples, you should be able to reduce bias that comes with defining an analysis yourself."

"The device and software are very easy to use. A lot of applications can be used to monitor cell growth, death, and even following neurites outgrowth."

"The software for analysis is not very efficient, the analysis should be done on ImageJ."

"I have only used it a few times so far, but I think it's pretty useful, as long as the cells are stained well. I think some of the settings for analysis are a little confusing, and I haven't been able to find the information that explains it all in the manual. However, overall, I think it's a powerful instrument and has a lot of specialized functions."

"Its one of the best instrument for most live cell imaging and analysis. I've used several imaging system but IncuCyte is the only flexible and hassle free instrument. One of the best investment ever made. The after sales service is awesome and the reps are very friendly and extremely helpful."

"Our lab has been using Incucyte for many years. It is particularly useful for studying microglia cells. We mainly use Incucyte to track cell proliferation and cell death, as well as monitor microglial phagocytic activity. The software is easy to use, and the machine can accommodate multiple users at the same time. It is essential to our research."

"It's a reliable instrument with a proven record. However, the current support is very borderline comparing to when the company was Essen. In addition, 2 color and 3 lenses are a bit limited for some routine applications."

"The Incucyte has been a great addition to our lab. It's allowing us to design experiments we hadn't considered before. I especially like how it comes with a networked computer that is very fast, allowing us to analyse results from our own slower computers really quickly. It's a very intuitive system to figure out and we've even trained a high school student to operate it. Some of the consumables are a bit expensive, but most are available from other vendors. Overall, we're very happy with the machine and it's so heavily used here we're working on getting another."

"The IncuCyte ZOOM with migration assay module is a great set-up for running reproducible, high-throughput migration assays. The software analysis was a little non-user friendly to figure out at the beginning, but there is a lot of functionality in setting up and analyzing the cell migration. Live-cell imaging gives more insights into cellular activity than just the numbers alone, so this tool is a great addition to our disease modeling systems."

"The S3 is a perfect imager that produces high quality images even in phase contrast mode. We regularly are screening for neuro protective compounds in our iPSC model system where we can gain invalueable real-time data of response with images and graphs of 5 phenotypes of neurite changes. We can set up the images and times ahead of time with analysis in real-time and come back days later with super graphs of data. It is a highly-valued component of our research work."