To avoid gel discs sticking to the caster,  please read carefully the following instructions:

- First of all, it is essential to apply PBS (Phosphate-Buffered Saline) around the gel discs before opening the QGel™ 3D Disc Caster. Then, make sure PBS wetted the whole side surfaces of every gel. Use a spatula to move PBS all around gels.

- You can then use the spatula as a lever to partly lift up the upper plate of the 3D Disc Caster and create some room to introduce the spatula (the latter should be very thin!).

For more information about how to make gel discs from the QGel™ MT 3D Matrix powder, please refer to p. 08-09 of the QGel™ Product Information brochure  that describes the process in details (see also figures above).

However, if making gel discs really doesn’t suit your experiment, you can also cast gel drops (i.e. without using the transparent cover) that are much easier to remove from the lower (white) part of the gel caster. Then, wet the gel drops with PBS, harvest them with a spatula and put them in cell culture media.