A petri dish is most often used in laboratories in a microbiology science - for example the petri dish is used to culture cells. The aseptically produced dish can be made of plastic or glass with or without an aseptically produced petri dish lid. The advantage to the petri dish is that it can be reused, but the petri dish must be sterilised before reuse. This is done by heating the petri dish in a 160 C sterilisation oven for an hour.

The most common use for the petri dish in a medical biological laboratory is as an agar plate. Warm liquid agar, a gelatinous substance is placed into the petri dish and is then used to culture micro-organisms. An individual micro-organism is placed onto the agar in the petri dish and then its growth and colonisation is studied and measured in the laboratory. The shape of the petri dish is ideal for the visual study of the contents, and even the naked eye can see the results in the petri dish. The organisms in the petri dish can produce interesting patterns in the petri dish and colour dyes are used to highlight the organisms in the petri dish, which accentuate the cell reproduction patterns.

A laboratory will make sure that their petri dish supplier provides both good cost options and customer service. In most cases a laboratory will use their petri dish supplier to provide the rest of their laboratory equipment.

LSL