HOB bioreactor assemble

There are no valves in the luer locks and I don’t think you’re going to blow things up with female going into male, but there are some negative consequences if you really have got the filters and luer locks the wrong way round:

  1. Filters are directional the flow must go from the female side to the male side - see my post here for the reasoning.

  2. Your system will look different to all the others and you will likely be programming your subconcious with sub-optimal practice. In your place, I’d want to ensure that I got it right from the very first experiment. If they were definitely wrong, I would stop and change them before proceeding.

BUT make sure your definition of male and female luer locks are correct. Males are bigger, They have a big sheath on the outside with a male protrusion on the inside. Females are smaller and go between the male sheath and protrustion. An easy check is your filters. They have a female luer lock on the inlet side. On the outlet they have a male luer slip (no sheath, no lock, just a protrusion.

To be doubly sure, would you like to send a photo? Your previous photo shows what appears to me to be a correctly set up PRODUCT bottle (I’d love to see it from the top to be absolutely sure). It has a female inlet luerlock on the left to receive the product flow, and a male luer lock on the right going into the female side of a vent filter (the side with writing and the only side with lock tabs).