Anybody who has ever worked with cells or tissues in culture knows that the dish in which to grow and look at the specimen can be of crucial importance to the results obtained, With the growing importance of live cell microscopy, be it simple phase contrast or sophisticated multilabel confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM), people have been looking for dishes that combine optimal growth conditions with optimal optical properties. As follows, I will describe a solution that has worked for us with a multitude of different cells, tissues and applications. Apart from that, it is cheap and easily self-made.

The bottom of a standard 35 mm plastic ceil culture dish has a hole of ca. 10 mm drilled into it and a coverslip glued to its downside to cover the hole. For a glue we usually use Sylgard, an inert silicone elastomer (Dow Corning) or melted paraffin if we intend to take off the coverslip again.