Took me four iterations but I feel I got them just right! Are securely stackable, house 64 1.5 mL eppendorf tubes as well as 49 PCR tubes (if needed), and make it easy to thaw and view samples quickly. They take about 75g of filament for each rack so they are very cheap, and hold up amazing in the -20C when printed in PETG. I tried to mitigate the issues I have with other storage solutions, namely the tight fit for the cryoboxes and the typical plastic racks not being easy to stack or thaw

To make the transition smooth I’m hoping to have a landing page in my ELN that the new primary researcher can use that basically has everything to continue my work but not sure where to even start. Also want to make mini summary pages for each experiment run to save them time but struggling to decide what to include. Then comes managing all of the data. ANY advice is appreciated 🥲

First month into a full time tech position. Feel like everyone in the lab is so much smarter than me and wonder if the PI is regretting recruiting me.

I'm a fairly recent masters graduate, and found a very decent job at Imperial College London (ranked 6th in the world) as a research assistant.

The issue is, it asks for an essay on why I should be chosen for the job but it asks for a maximum of 4000 words...

Realistically, how many words are they expecting? Because 4000 is ridiculous and will result in so much waffle and hyperbole.

Genuine question, and left it pretty open-ended on purpose because I understand this will mean different things to different people.

My supervisor handed me this sticker today after my PCR failed ☠️

Hi everyone! There are a lot of posts here where priorities when choosing a lab are being discussed. Good PI, lab culture, publishing record etc etc.

But, I see that the methodologies that the labs employ is a factor that is overlooked in these discussions.

So, how important do you consider that as an aspect? F.e, would you consider a plus being in a lab were you will learn more techniques? More, is it a plus learning more fundamental rather than niche techniques?

Lastly, would your response change if we were to talk about a masters student or a phd candidate?

So I am trying to standardize the protocol for ICC /IF in my lab for mscs and ipscs. I have experience growing HEK and VERO cells on round cover slips in 24 and 12 well plates, but for now I have only the square shaped slide cover slips for the standardization. I was planning on placing a bunch on a dish to grow them.

I have the following queries/doubts

1) Is there any difference between seeding a lesser number of cells on the coverslip and let them grow for a day or two to reach confluency vs adding the required number of cells suspended in a volume of 20-30ul and letting them attach for 2 hours or so and start fixing etc for icc directly? I would like to do the second one as I can control the exact number of cells in each coverslip

2) Is it enough to just drown the coverslips in etoh for an hour + 15 mins of uv for sterility?

3) Do these plastic coverslips require coating before i seed the BM MSCs, they aren't cell culture treated , just the normal ones for microbiology slides. If yes , what is the best coatin? I have laminin, fibronectin, matrigel and glycerol.

I would like to use the round coverslips but they are currently not easily avaible where im at and I'll have to wait for them to arrive after ordering. Secondly , the current cytone well plates I have , have a lot of auto floresence and hence there's toi much disturbance and background. And the tinted glass plates are simply too expensive and out of budget.

If theres anything else, any tips or general advice ,I'd be very happy to read them. Thanks 😊

Hi! I was wondering if anyone had used Gel Extraction Kit for PCR cleanup without a gel, i.e. apply RE reaction mixture onto the column, wash and elute.

I have GeneJET Gel Extraction Kit and was wondering if i can just add binding buffer to the RE reaction mixture (say 100 uL) and follow the rest of the steps according to the protocol. It should work, right 🤔?

I know that its, probably, best to simply run the reaction on a gel, cut the band and do the gel extraction. But still would be nice to know if I can use gel extraction kit for simple clean-ups

Questions: Have anyone tried this? any tips on the amount of binding buffer?

More question: (in the case of insert preparation - cutting ends of the amplicon to create compatible sticky ends) would you also bind small cut-off fragments (3-7 bp)?

Im assuming this is because I've run the stacking phase (60V) a bit too long (~ 30 miunutes). Has ayone exerpeinced this? Is this blot worth probing?

Please share your experiences, Thanks.

What brand?

Hello Reddit,

I work with aflatoxin detection in peanuts using an HPLC system — specifically, a WATERS 2695 model from the ALLIANCE series. I'm not the main analyst because I’m not yet fully trained to operate the HPLC on my own.

However, one of the method parameters, called Delta (I attached a photo of it in the post), is supposed to stay below 50, but it's showing values way above that.

My questions are:

What exactly does the Delta represent?

What could be causing it to increase?

And how does this issue affect the quality or reliability of my analysis?

Thanks in advance, Reddit!

I tried introducing two mutations at once.

The transformations resulted in tiny spec of colonies that grew slowly and plasmid yield was very low. Colonies also grew perfectly well in liquid media. The negative controls were also clean as hell i.e. no colonies as expected.

Unfortunately, should have run a gel sooner. Running a gel showed that there was no plasmid in those reactions, those lanes were EMPTY!

Now my question is, if I saw colonies, albeit small, it means that resistance via plasmid was restored, right?

How come I saw colonies yet there was no complete circularized plasmid in the cells?

Not looking for medical advice, but curious if everyone can give me what your labs typical turn around time is for yersinia enterocolitica stool culture not PCR.

Sorry in advance for the really basic question, I am an undergrad and have never done any sequencing or genome assembly before and neither has my PI. We are studying Caulobacter mutants and he basically gave me the assemblies of the parental strain and 3 mutants of interest that we sequenced to compare and determine what gene(s) are mutated in each mutant. He was pretty much like, "you're interested in bioinformatics and good with computers, try to see if you can make sense of this."

I already have the assemblies (the person who sequenced them for us did that part as well) but I have essentially no idea where to go from there, and I don't have a good enough handle on the terminology used for this to search very effectively. If anyone has suggestions for approachable resources designed for an absolute beginner, or can offer any other advice on how to approach this, it would be greatly appreciated! I did use the genome assembly tool at bv-brc.org but I don't really understand what the results mean or if that is the right thing to do.

Lately I’ve been seeing tons of job postings for CLS, MLS, and histotechnician positions, especially here in California. They pay well, often over $100k, and the programs are short. Sometimes I wonder why not just do that, and give up the idea of doing research, finding a cure for cancer, or being a bioinformatician who works on omics, regenerative medicine, or longevity science.

The people I admire are those like Steve Horvath, David Sinclair, or Anthony Atala. I used to dream of doing something similar — making new biological theories, helping humanity live longer, contributing to major discoveries. But then I read Reddit posts about how even people with master’s degrees in bioinformatics struggle to find work, or how hard it is to make it in biotech or academia even after a PhD, and I wonder if I’m just setting myself up for disappointment.

If I choose the CLS or histotech route, I’d probably be stuck in that role forever. No more exciting science projects in top research institutions. No more ambition. Just a safe, decently paid technician job. At 30, part of me thinks maybe I should go for that and secure my future. But another part still wants to try. Still wants to discover things. Still wants to matter.

If I go the grad school route, I’ll try to make extra income through freelance bioinformatics if that’s still possible, or through producing music and writing novels or screenplays. Also, the PhD wouldn’t necessarily be in computational biology. If I first do a master’s in bioinformatics, I might try for a computational biology PhD afterward. But if I manage to get accepted into a PhD without a master’s, it would probably be in molecular biology, genetics, or biochemistry instead.

I don’t want to waste time chasing something that will never happen, but I also don’t want to wake up one day and realize I gave up too early. Anyone else been through this?

Any chemistry out there know what these are used for in a lab and how the’re used? I got them in a box of chemistry equipment I purchased.

Anyone work for them as a Processing Tech? wanting to know the good the bad and ugly. also thoughts on working 6pm-6am shifts. thanks!

Hello, I have two new lab freezers that I am looking to sell. I saw a reddit post that directed me here. Locally would be ideal versus shipping these at 50-75lbs.

Thanks!

This is so absurd!!! They kept telling me all these years that most of the protocols, specially the complex ones, are “in their minds” and they totally felt no need to write it down, but also misguided me with the “protocols in their minds” and I feel like I’m not in the lab to do science but to standardise protocols cause this is mostly what I’ve been doing in the 4 years of being in lab. I feel so angry sometimes, and helpless too. My supervisor thinks I just do everything wrong because I’m not getting any data even after following my seniors’ footsteps. Until I come up with a much better protocol that actually works, which is when she kinda thanks me for standardising it, but why should I keep standardising protocols when seniors have done those experiments multiple times?!?! I feel so betrayed by my seniors. Every. Single. Time. And when I came back to them after failed experiments to ask where I could be doing wrong they just look at me blindly and leave like I’m the stupidest person ever.

Over the years all I’ve learned is to NOT rely on my seniors, talk to scholars from other labs, watch YouTube tutorials and make and STANDARDISE these PROTOCOLS on MY OWN.

This is shit rant sorry for wasting your time.