I couldn't find any sort of manual or instructions, and I can't figure out what the "score" and "threshold" values it gave me mean. I tried finding papers or looking through forums, but none of them go into detail about it, and the manual that comes with the installed version of Alien Hunter also doesn't have any details. Thank you for any help!

hi hi!

recently i decided to switch my educational goals and focus more on the lab side of things i've found a passion for. after taking a microbiology course, i absolutely fell in love with the process. it all clicked so well for me and created that kind of "this is for me" spark. i feel kind of stupid searching around for what positions and degree paths would best suit my goals because i'm not 100% sure of what's out there/what jobs i imagine myself doing might be called and wanted to hear from those in the professional fields if you're willing to share! i know i'm interested with mostly working in or near medicine. i am getting a biomedical sciences degree currently but it isn't the main degree i'm working towards, just more supplemental if that's the best way to phrase it. hopefully this makes sense lol! i want to see what kind of lab work is out there and what degrees have helped best with making that kind of career path a reality :)) thank you in advance if any responses!

Undergrad who has been working in a laboratory (unpaid) since Jan of this year. I love the work that the lab does, and I want to contribute to the projects handled by the graduate students. However, the PI severely underestimates undergraduate students and has often stated to the grad students in private that undergrads are not motivated and don't want to work. He gave me a project to work on over the summer and then pulled out of it because he wasn't interested in it anymore. He took away my lab access because I was working in the lab alone, which fair a grad student needs to be present, but then he goes around saying that I'm not doing any work. I am in the lab everyday assisting the grad students when I can, he won't give me a project because apparently "I'm not committed", and the worst part is he thinks I'm not committed to being a research assistant just because I don't have any data to show at our weekly group meetings. Like, HELLO? I don't know, I want to leave because I feel like I'm being treated like I'm incapable of anything even though I know I am, but I love the work that the lab does, and I fear that leaving just reinforces his idea of how undergrads behave. But I know there's better labs out there, with professors who are willing to pay undergrads for their work and actually help them develop skills as a researcher which is what I want.

I just feel defeated and conflicted.

Hi all,

I posted about a week ago talking about how PBS seems to knock my HEK cells loose even though I add it dropwise to the side of the well.

Well, today I got a plate of fully confluent HEK cells from another lab on a 10cm dish. This 10cm dish was different than the one I was culturing in, so it made me think - am I just using a sterile plate that isn't necessarily tissue-culture treated? (The box the plates came in was thrown out and the sleeves just have a "sterile" sticker on them. I think this may be the case as this plate I used the HEK's were STUCK even after trypsinization for 2 minutes, I had to hit the plate a few times to get them loose.

It's either the plate or the PBS I borrowed from a separate lab, but... I'm leaning towards the plate.

I'm an undergrad student working on Luciferase assays. I've been resuspending cancer cell pellets in Triton-based buffers, letting it do its thing for 10 minutes or so, and then sonicating after. Then I spin down the tubes at max speed and use the supernatant for Luciferase, etc. For some reason I can't get consistent activity, or even in the 5 * 10^6 cell count range, I barely get any luminescence. I feel like I'm not resuspending consistently or something. I've been flicking to mix and pipetting up and down to break up the pellets. Can I just vortex instead or is that too harsh?

How do you guys do sufficient and efficient cell lysis for mammalian cancer cells when you need to avoid denaturing the proteins for Luciferase? That's why I can't use RIPA or anything like that. The experiment works in PDX models in mice and we're trying to replicate it in vitro, so I know what results I'm supposed to get kind of. I'm trying to rule out issues with procedure/methods.

Hi, everyone. i’m a recent grad with about 3 years experience in hemp research and 4 manuscripts with 1 awaiting resubmission :/. i’m applying for grad programs but, i’m not sure if i’ll even get accepted. anyone have experience in landing research roles in botany, horticulture, and or plant/soil sciences?

Specifically my right wrist only, which I find weird. Anyone else? I assume its the lab coat, as it's persisted long term, is the only thing that touches the wrist and goes away if I have a week or so out of the lab.

Hello fellow rats!! I tried to ask this in r/askscience but they wouldn’t let me post it. But I know there’s some rats in here that might have some knowledge or like to theorize like me..

So I had a random thought that Google wasn’t giving a straight answer for. So humans are technically conductors of electricity and we all have experienced at some point getting zapped touching stuff with static electricity. My question is… is there a maximum amount of static electricity that a human can discharge? For background, I am a molecular biologist so my physics knowledge is far from extensive so I may not even be using the correct terminology, but I think I can get my point across.

Can a human “charge” up on static electricity, if so, is there a maximum charge that the body can hold before “releasing” that charge by, say, touching a metal object (and ZAP)? Could we theoretically just continually rack up a static electrical charge and discharge a large amount of electricity onto something? Or is it the same amount of static charge every time someone gets “zapped” from static?

Again, apologies if my physics terminology is off I’m just a curious rat

We got our triple quad LC-MS/MS installed a month or so ago and had our 3-day lab training with the tech. I am feeling so overwhelmed and scared about creating methods. All of us grad students of course took good notes and have online learning modules thru the company, but I am still feeling nervous about having to now teach all of this to the undergrads next semester. How long did it take you to feel proficient at creating and running methods on LC-MS/MS??

On the right - very old photo of mouse primary heart cells, and I forgot what stain I used then, lol.

https://preview.redd.it/35fsj3x1hb5e1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4dedf421e8a4bbec0ae039f982db10a3b2b4c2b0

For years, I have been vortexing BSA to dissolve it in TBST for western blots, and in PBS for immunofluorescence. I have been getting clean blots and stainings, but apparently you shouldn’t foam BSA up by maximum vortexing? Everytime I did it, it foamed, I diluted my Cell Signaling Technology primary antibodies in it and reused them like 15-20 times with no issue and strong, specific bands.

When is this crucial?

Hey ya'll,

running some qPCR for UTI and getting some pretty high CT's for the rnase P gene which we use as an endogenous QC check/extraction check.

Wondering if I can order some human Rnase P gene control/oligo from somewhere to beef up the endogenous/extraction control?
Option B is to concentrate the urine by spinning it down and re-suspending but that would require investment into a 15ml capable centrifuge and PBS and add more time so I don't like that option.

How are you folks maintaining your biotek plate washers?

We are running a ton of ELISAs and I think the tween from the PBS-T builds up this goo inside the machine.
I guess when I get spotting on the plates, parts of this goo that is full of secondary gets loose and contaminates the plates (very similar to a stroke lol).

So my question is, what are you using to properly clean it. Are there some cleaning solutions that I can just pump through it so I don't have to disassemble the whole thing every time?

12 months ago today I submitted my Master of Research thesis at an Australian university. I still haven’t received my examination results and at this stage will be looking at an April 2025 conferral a July 2025 graduation.

My thesis topic was a very niche area and I understand there was difficulty in finding examiners. However they returned their examination reports 5 months ago and since then multiple clerical errors and unexplained delays mean I have missed several graduation rounds.

The cherry on the top is I am pay capped in my current role and can bump up my weekly income by $180 after conferral.

I'm adding E2 to some HEK cells to study concentration-dependent effects. I repeated some of the same transfections I did a few weeks ago and I'm not seeing much fluorescence anymore-- is there any way the potency of the E2 has gone down since? Thanks!

We got our columns delivered with this lil thingy full of the storage solution and I had wanted to try and reuse this on our it when we have to get the system cleaned / switch columns- but I have zero clue on how to drop the rubber stopper/platform down despite multiple various attempts (after taking the lock & spring out ofc). The attempt that I think had the best luck was using a thin stick to try and shove it down, and it budged a bit, but not before stabbing a bit into the rubber. Anyone who knows if it can be reused / how to refill it / has any ideas on what to try next would be appreciated:)

I am referring to the column where you pass the lysed sample (before ethanol addition) to remove gDNA in kits such as RNeasy (Qiagen) and Monarch (NEB). I guess it is just another flavor of silica columns, but how do they selectively bind DNA instead of RNA? Was that solely due to DNA is usually longer than RNA and requires less chaotropic reagent to bind, or there is other difference in their chemistry I don't know of?

I know what I’m doing. I know why I’m doing what I’m doing. I have the spiel for the projects I’m on written across my soul and can talk to my PI/labmates about it all day. If it’s in a presentation I can get my points across. But the minute I have to explain what I do to scientists who aren’t involved with my project or area of research, I stumble. I trip over my words, stutter, struggle to explain it in layman’s terms without sounding like a robot, I lose all form of articulation. How do yall just casually talk about your projects to others?

Hi everyone, I’m validating sexing primers for genotyping using known female (FC) and male (MC) controls for autosomal and Y-chromosome markers, FABP2 and SRY, respectively. Although the gel mostly worked, I’m not sure why the bands and ladder look so squiggly. Any ideas of what I could do to prevent that?

i don't think my barcode adapters ligated for D1-DE y'all

Could someone please explain what could possibly be causing this band formation on my western blot. For reference this is GAPDH so it should be nice and clean.

https://preview.redd.it/x7ih9234ca5e1.jpg?width=233&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59ea081f5fab51876d3097f9d270d0f2fb57ad93

The internet is so full of negativity, I need to share something nice today.

I'm a first-year grad student in a large academic lab, but I've been working on this same project for a couple years, since I joined it during undergrad. I finished my undergrad thesis last April, and we got a new undergrad in May. I got her trained up on sample processing from RNA extraction through to qPCR, and then later on running the data through our R scripts for stats and graphs.

I've been out of the lab for a month visiting a collaborator's lab in another country. I left her a big pile of samples to go through, and joined our regular meeting by Zoom today. She's been working through them independently, messaging me occasional good questions about R errors and Excel procedure.

She presented the graphs she made, with significance markings filled in, and she got a turn to be (supportively) grilled by the PI and lab manager on what was happening (they do it to everyone who presents, coax you to share the details of the experiment with the larger group who are less in the weeds than you are and don't have the details memorized). Bonus: I got to hide behind my screen and just listen.

She did great, I'm so proud of her. This is why we mentor, people, no matter where we are, to help the baby scientists who are even newer than us to learn and flourish. (Even if I'm almost a baby scientist, myself.)

It makes me smile to remember being there after a previous grad student taught me how to make my own graphs, and see how far everyone has come. That grad student defended and left, I finished undergrad and became a grad student, and a new undergrad joined and eventually became productive.

I don't know where some of you find your undergrads but when she leaves the lab I'm absolutely going to let her know she can use me as a job reference if she needs one.

I’m trying to see if there’s a software that is good for lab inventory management. We currently use benchling, which is expensive, slow and not user friendly. I’ve heard Labguru, Quartzy and Genemod. But not sure which to choose and have not had any experience with any of them.

I’ve also heard about popular general inventory software like inFlow and Fishbowl. Any experiences with these for labs?

We mainly need something that is quick and easy to set up without a huge learning curve, without intense manual handling like excel and google sheets. With barcode integration of course.

Do you guys have suggestions? Or complaints about your current system?

An R^2 of 1. I need to buy a lottery ticket

Hello everyone,

I recently came across a protein ladder that seems to have different molecular weights for the same markers depending on what kind of buffer is used (presumably for running the gel). Moreover, it seems some vendors state different molecular weights in their datasheets for the same standards (e.g. ovalbumin, lysozyme etc.) depending on the percentage of gel. I'm not sure I understand what this means. While I get that migration distance would be lower in higher percentage gels, it's not clear to me how the size can change based on just the buffer.

I'd be happy to share the product datasheet with y'all if that helps.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, this is for cell culture people:

Recently I was freezing down MEFs. I know that once you add DMSO, you have to HUSTLE to freeze them since it's toxic to the cells. However, I ran into some issues, and the vials ended up sitting at room temp for a minute while I was rushing.

Question is, how screwed am I? I guess, how fast does the DMSO actually kill the cells? I'm thinking about taking 1 vial and thawing, resuspending, and putting them under the scope to see if they're alive... what do you think? Thanks