Search results for: pipetting
Guidelines for Efficient Cell Sorting – Part 1
…it. Proper dislodging and pipetting along with a touch of DNAase can help prevent clumps to a large extent. Unless you’re facing a cell drought, always filter your cells before…
Read More10 Fun Hobbies for Scientists
…errors and subtly make your research more reliable. Some good examples of tasks it helps with include: Handling precious liquid samples. Knocking over and breaking expensive items. Pipetting out assays….
Read MoreThe Proper Way To Use The Sub-G1 Assay
…gentle permeabilization of the cells with detergent but in the presence of serum or serum albumin to protect cells from lysis. However, these cells are still extremely fragile and pipetting,…
Read MoreQuick and Dirty Screening for Cloned Inserts
…to your piptte causing pipetting difficulties as well cause the sample to jump out of the agarose lanes. If this happens spin down again for a few minutes and load)…
Read MoreJust This Moment. Introducing the Science Behind Mindfulness and Meditation
How often have you looked at slides down the microscope and your thoughts have been miles away? Have you ever been sitting at the bench pipetting and preparing a PCR…
Read MoreRNA Isolation from Drosophila – Don’t Let the Cuticle Scare You!
…if the RNA is going to be used in an enzymatic reaction!) by pipetting up and down. A 10 min incubation via water bath or heat block) at 55°C can…
Read More10 Steps to Enjoying Fieldwork for Sedentary Scientists
…pipetting, I vividly remember my first fieldtrip to the wilderness. It was a trip to an island off the coast of Singapore to collect water and sediment samples from a…
Read MoreSize Analysis of High-Molecular-Weight DNA for Long-Read Sequencing
…library construction steps. Every pipetting step (slowly, with wide-bore tips is recommended!) can break the DNA into small fragments that can affect your sequencing results. During DNA sequencing, the presence…
Read MoreProteomics and Good Mass Spectrometry Data
…excessive sample handling (pipetting, opening tubes, etc) to reduce loss and the chance for contamination. It is almost always a good idea to use low retention microcentrifuge tubes. They bind…
Read MoreDNA Ligation: How it Works & 6 Top Tips
…prepared, the pH of your ligation mixture may lie outside of this range. You can check the pH of your ligation mixture by pipetting approximately 0.2 µL of the mix onto narrow range…
Read MoreTroubleshooting RNA Isolation
…(it should be acidic) and your skill in pipetting only the aqueous phase will result in more or less DNA contamination. Solution: The genomic DNA needs to be well homogenized,…
Read MoreTake Care of Your Tools: Cleaning Pipettes
…care poster up in your lab? They’re free! Happy pipetting! This article was originally published May 2014. Updated and republished August 2022. References Sartorius. Cleaning and Decontamination Guide for Sartorius…
Read MorePractical Application of Phenol-Chloroform Extraction
…If you pipette off some of this material when removing the aqueous phase, then you decrease the purity of your sample. If you are too timid while pipetting, then you…
Read More10 Handy Tips to Help Keep Your PCRs Contamination Free
…Reactions Using filter tips is recommended for these sensitive reactions but not mandatory. Filter tips have aerosol barriers which prevent contamination from air and within the tip while pipetting. Also…
Read MoreExcelling With Excel: Analytical Method Validation Using LOD and LOQ
…happening. For instance, pipetting errors can lead to variations in response when performing serial dilutions to prepare a standard curve. Furthermore, the sensitivity of every analytical technique differs with the…
Read MoreBeginners Guide to Setting Up Migration and Invasion Assays
…will stop any premature setting of your matrices. Slight changes in 3D-matrix plating densities arise from common pipetting errors, which can mean inconsistent results especially if there are bubbles or…
Read MoreDon’t Let Bubbles Burst Your Experimental Excitement
…surfaces cause uneven surface tension, affect flow and thus produce bubbles Pores, like in columns, are prone to producing microbubbles Pipetting too quickly Tips to Avoid Bubbles Degas your buffers….
Read MorePIER, HIER and Mannich: Antigen Retrieval in Immunohistochemistry
…this H&E article for more details about dewaxing and rehydrating. Add your enzyme. If pipetting directly onto your slides, pre-warm your Working Solution then add it to the sections on…
Read MoreSuperSize It! Scaling Up Your Experiments
…with your bottles empty in the middle of your protocol. Schedule in plenty of extra time Opening and closing tubes, labeling, pipetting – these are all things that only take…
Read MoreImportant Considerations for Determining qPCR Efficiency
…for the assay with clean water. Make your 10 fold dilutions and make enough for the number of reactions plus one to account for pipetting error. Use a P10 pipettor…
Read MoreMentoring Undergrads
…periods away from the lab. “Boot camp” period. This period should be devoted to basic laboratory technique introduction (pipetting, titrations, weighing chemicals etc.), adequate experimental documentation and literature overview for…
Read More10 Stupid Lab Safety Mistakes
…(see number 4 in that article) can happen. 7. Eating at/near the bench. Do people actually do this? They might as well be mouth-pipetting (oh, wait – they do that…
Read MoreErgonomics: How To Make Friends With Your Lab Environment
…requires to you to sit for long periods of time. So, what do you think? Is your work space ergo-friendly? Read more to learn about RSI thumb, and proper pipetting techniques….
Read MoreWhat Does “N” Mean When Using Cell Lines?
…Some might argue that this approach only measures pipetting ability, but a similar argument can be levied against the “independent experiments” definition. Both cases can only test technical variation, whether…
Read MoreHow to Light Up your Life – Tips and Tricks to Troubleshoot your Luciferase Assay.
…be very slight than the effect of a transcriptional repressor element, for example. Variability between replicates: Variability between wells of the same experiment Pipetting: A small variation in the amount…
Read MoreA Guide for Solving Your Lab Math Problems
…quite viscous at high concentrations which can introduce pipetting errors and finally you want to aim for a OD between 0.1 and 1 in order to get the most accurate…
Read MoreWant to Increase Your Lentiviral Titers? Focus on Your 293T Cells
…as evenly and quickly as possible – this helps to prevent cell clumping. Mix your detached cells gently by pipetting up and down a few times then dispense into new…
Read MoreTips for Dealing with Research Failures
…mouth-pipetting was still acceptable. But I’m not referring to the optimization of new and cutting edge technology here. I’m talking about techniques that are in theory so basic and fundamental…
Read MoreMultitasking in the Lab by Not Multitasking at All
…once, the less efficient you will be; and this includes things other than the experiments. If you are listening to a podcast or music while pipetting, or carrying on a…
Read MoreThe art of generating single cell clones
…least 10-20 clones). Remove 100 µL from A1 containing cells and mix with B1, pipetting up and down 3x to mix well before removing 100 µL and mixing with C1,…
Read MoreSending Plasmids: How to Avoid Jail Time and Shredded Envelopes
…wider than 2mm. They suggest either using padded envelopes, which are not put through automatic sorting machines or pipetting the DNA into a thin-walled polyethylene tube and sealing the ends…
Read MoreHow To Fix Suspension Cells For Microscopy And Imaging
…gentle pipetting should break up any cell clumps. *PBS or phosphate buffered saline is a common buffer used in cell culture and histology. The osmolarity and ion concentration of PBS…
Read MoreGoing Serum-Free: The How and Why of Removing Serum From Your Media
…with the reduced rate of growth, and gentle repeated pipetting of cell clumps should be enough to disperse them. How to Go Serum-Free Now that we’ve covered the pros and…
Read MoreRespect the Ultra
…by volume (i.e. pipetting the same volume into two centrifuge tubes and assuming they’re balanced), or by sight (ie they look like they have the same volume in them). You…
Read MoreExperimental Reproducibility: How to Get the Most “Bang” for Your Buck
…pipette tips may seem innocuous, but variability between lots can lead to suboptimal culture environments or incorrect pipetting volumes. For example, with pipette tips, using low retention tips is advisable….
Read MoreThe What, Why and How of Explant Culture
…be done by transferring pieces into a centrifuge tube containing around 0.5 mL of incomplete medium. Gently mix by pipetting the medium 4 to 5 times, and allow the pieces…
Read MoreThe Devil is in the Details: How to Setup a PCR Laboratory
…material in them to create a barrier. This barrier prevents what you are pipetting from aerosolizing and contaminating your pipette. Although barrier pipette tips are pricier than your normal run-of-the-mill…
Read MoreKeeping On Top of Housekeeping Genes
…pipetting errors, inefficient cDNA synthesis and inaccurate quantification will lead to a quantifiable difference. Thus, a good housekeeping gene provides a point of reference to normalize all values to and…
Read MoreAn Essential Toolbox for qPCR Users
…and there through pipetting, so make sure to take that into account. Oligo Resuspension Calculator This is a helpful little tool to calculate the exact volume of water or TE…
Read More10 Ways to Abuse a Pipette
…beautiful pipettes have been ruined by sheer incompetence… 2. The wrong guy for the job Make sure your tip is the right one for the volume you are pipetting. You…
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