I am a newcomer to FACS, so please excuse me if the answer to this question has been dealt with previously/elsewhere... When one removes a tube from the BD FACSCalibur machine after the analysis, it generates a 'whoosh' noise, due to the pressure difference which had been generated between the room air pressure and that inside the tube; from what I've read about biosafety in general, such pressure differences can potentially generate aerosols (* - see below), so I was wondering about the biosafety aspects of changing tubes (in a machine that's not in a safety cabinet). --- * - see http://www.nwu.edu/research-safety/labsafe/cbsl/cbsl7.htm, a document on Laboratory Safety published by Northwestern University: "Properly maintained biological safety cabinets, preferably Class II, or other appropriate personal protective equipment or physical containment devices are used whenever: 1.Procedures with a potential for creating infectious aerosols or splashes are conducted. These may include centrifuging, grinding, blending, vigorous shaking or mixing, sonic disruption, opening containers of infectious materials **in which internal pressure may differ from ambient pressure**, inoculating animals intranasally, and harvesting infected tissues from animals or eggs." [my emphasis] Thank you, David A. Schiffmann
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