A culture media is a compound which has constituents that are essential for life, multiplication and growth of microorganisms. Microorganisms will multiply on its medium until they give rise to a visible colony. The two main types of media are solid media and liquid culture.

The first to cultivate microorganisms on a growth medium, was the French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1922-1985). Pasteur fashioned a media of yeast, ash, candy sugar and ammonium salts in 1860.

A significant development from the liquid media was with solid media in 1881 by Robert Koch as he had recognised the difficulties of using broth media for isolation of pure cultures. The new nutrient gelatine or plate technique could then be used both to isolate pure cultures of bacteria and to subculture them.

Culture media serve a number of purposes in practical microbiology. They are mainly used to grow a wide range of organisms in particular groups or even to maintain organisms in culture collections. A general purpose media is enriched with blood or other special nutrients to support the growth of fastidious bacteria for example, blood agar. The selective culture media is to allow growth for particular microorganisms while inhibiting the growth of others. Culture media is also used for distinguishing between different types of microorganisms based on their biological characteristics. 

A dehydrated culture media is described as a substance that satisfies the nutritional requirements of any species under cultivation. It might require sources of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, water, energy, inorganic salts, trace elements and other factors of growth. These media are available in the form of powder and are easy to reconstitute and labour saving.

Dehydrated culture media is very convenient which can be used straight from the shelf and only a little need for refrigeration or specialist storage compared to other types of culture media. Dehydrated culture media is the best choice for cost effective media, as it fits all lab regimes and work loads. It is also waste-free as it makes up on what is needed and when it is needed. As it has a long shelf-life which can stay up to years compared with days or weeks for ready prepared media.

The following product categories are available in our e-store:

DEHYDRATED CULTURE MEDIA (POWDER/GRANULATED FORM) FOR MICROBIOLOGY

• Animal Protein Based Culture Media
• Vegetable Protein Based Media (HiVeg™Media)
• HiCrome Range of Chromogenic Media
• Media as per Harmonized methods, Pharmacopoeias USP EP BP JP, ISO, APHA, FDA BAM, BIS
• Sterile Media for Media Fill Trials

MEDIA SUPPLEMENTS

Antimicrobial or chemicals are added to culture media to make them selective for the isolation of desired or important microorganisms. HiMedia supplies a wide range of media supplements including enrichment & selective growth supplements, species identification supplements, chromogenic supplements, blood & serum and egg yolk supplements, which are presented in packs of vials and contents of each vial are specified under respective supplement.

CULTURE MEDIA BASES

Culture Media Bases or raw materials are the basic ingredients of any culture media manufactured and supplied by HiMedia. These culture media bases include a variety of raw materials like agars, beef extract, bile salts, gelatin, casein hydrolysates, liver extracts, malt extract, meat extract, meat infusion, peptones, special peptones, tryptones, tryptose and yeast extract etc.

Are you looking for microbiology culture media and supplements in Malaysia? Browse through our collection of quality and innovative laboratory equipment, consumables and reagents.