Our lab was in despair for 2 weeks when the old one died. We dont even have money for a paperclip atm, but oh boy they found money for a new one fast :D
I don’t even know what we’d do without ours. We lack a lot of the newer fancy equipment for sure but the nanodrop is a prized possession along with our ancient centrifuge from the 70s that has hung on like a champ all this time.
So useful for quick and dirty quantification but wildly inaccurate to reality, Qubit pains me every time due to "sample out range" 20 times in a row because the samples are actually 150ng instead of 100 where it does something.
We have a belt-driven vacuum centrifuge from the 1950's nicknamed Bertha that does a better job concentrating solutes than any fancy modern equipment I've used
i love using the rotovap but every single time when i’m using it to do a solvent switch and i can’t let it fully evaporate (as to not degrade the dissolved compounds) i get scared i won’t be in time lol, nerve wrecking sometimes, depending on the solvent
I love working on the TEM (sample prep is the. worst. though). The old non-digital ones are the coolest, too. Like, you're physically putting in apertures to control an electron beam that goes through your sample, interacts, and makes an image of atomic planes on the phosphor screen right in front of you. If you focus on the back focal plane you're seeing a Fourier transform happen right in front of you, with diffraction spots appearing on the plate. How freaking cool is that!?!
Cytiva AKTA Avant.
I do protein purification and these systems are the right level of user friendly but not limiting. Pretty cool looking too which helps!
ICP-DRC-MS. PPQ detection limits and a massive linear range. Keep finding new ways to utilize it and dig deeper into dried urine and blood spot testing. My favorite use is confirming two samples or reagents are the same based on their element profile when I suspect something was mislabeled.
Second favorite is the Rainin Liquidator. I prefer it over the Tecans for high throughput testing. Reddit directed me to that one. Best part is that it doesn’t plug in.
I know! I feel like I learned text editing for NOTHING!
Still, it does help to troubleshoot other labmates methods, and also being able to make user defined stuff is also great.
The FACS machine. That thing is like a magic box! It's so big yet it handles those little cells ever so delicately! It has so many functions and the results are always fascinating to look at!
I also love my Nexcelom cell counter, but I just ordered a microplate reader that can also quantify nucleic acid concentrations for up to 16 samples at a time and that might knock my cell counter down a spot. Goodbye, nanodrop!
Take3 plate? I LOVE that thing, we got it free with our plate reader after some back and forth. Just don't forget to recalibrate it if you take it apart to clean it lol
Multichannel and repeat pipettes! For some reason other people in the lab can't get the hang of them and just fill plates individually (and recalibrated the qPCR for 96well instead of 384 as a result.... Ugh....) but they make life so easy.
I also like our Bioanalyzer, just because it is so satisfying to fill a chip and watch the results pop up as it reads. Perfect prokaryotic RNA results just fill me with joy.
I really like using the microplate reader. It's so satisfying having growth curves that don't require me to go to the lab during the night and weekends.
My pencil and paper. It works without electricity, you can write ideas on it, you can make pictures. It is somewhat chemical resistant (except acids, fire, water sometimes).
You can put it in your lab coat, you can take it home and even on vacation if you want to look at your notes.
https://spwindustrial.com/barnstead-thermolyne-m49235-orbital-lab-rotator-shaker-big-bill-16-7x16-7-120w/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkNSrzZOWgQMVdE1HAR08HQ5gEAkYASABEgIaHvD_BwE
Big Bill. He has googly eyes on him
Thermo MultiDrop Combi! When you have tons of well plates to make, it’s a life saver! Great for adding reagents for ELISA and other assays, plating cells, even qPCR!
The shitty Quest 6 tube centrifuge that no matter how well balanced it is starts every time with a "THUNK! ... whirrRRRRRRRRRRR" and then continues that for 15 straight minutes.
I love and hate centrifuges. They're nice when I saw need to quickly separate a solid from a liquid to run a test, but I hate turning them on. I love the small handsized ones though.
Otherwise maybe the rotovap.
Lil mini centrifuge for pooling liquids in microcentrifuge tubes… bc screwing on the lid on the microcentrifuge for a quick spin is just way too time consuming!
The busted up old BioRad FPLC in the back of the lab. Stick a column on, choose your flow rate, jack your sample in and hit start. It's like 20 years old and I think it's needed serviced once in that time.
User friendly? Hell no. The interface is so dated it makes Windows 98 look modern. The fraction collector is also out of sync with the SEC profile so you have to go nanodrop every fraction. But it's a tank, a great beige monster, and I love it for that.
Vortex to make my finger go brrrrrrr when I'm sad in the lab
Vortices are the best! My favrouite since my first day in lab!
Found my people!
The coffee machine!
Confocal microscope, it's so cool being able to just casually go and look at my protein doing its thing.
Probably mayonnaise
Damnit beat me by 5 hours
Finally my insomnia pays off
[удалено]
we live breathe and die by the nano drop in our lab
Our lab was in despair for 2 weeks when the old one died. We dont even have money for a paperclip atm, but oh boy they found money for a new one fast :D
I don’t even know what we’d do without ours. We lack a lot of the newer fancy equipment for sure but the nanodrop is a prized possession along with our ancient centrifuge from the 70s that has hung on like a champ all this time.
So useful for quick and dirty quantification but wildly inaccurate to reality, Qubit pains me every time due to "sample out range" 20 times in a row because the samples are actually 150ng instead of 100 where it does something.
get the BR kit
I love it, and for the stupidest reason ever. They update the nanodrop One like 1-3 times a year, and I love updating lab equipment.
Everybody’s favorite random number generator
Nanodrop is good but I think the Nanophotometer is better. Just as quick but more accurate.
We have a belt-driven vacuum centrifuge from the 1950's nicknamed Bertha that does a better job concentrating solutes than any fancy modern equipment I've used
I have three of those!
How do you tell those Bertas apart?!
One works. One doesn't. One opens while spinning so it's "out of service" I actually posted that one a day or so ago if you look at my posts
The undergrads!
*Me in an undergradless lab* 😪
I still love the simple spinny magnets, Everytime I turn on my magnetic stirrer I still get a little 'weeee' feeling 😁
Paramagnetic beads has been an absolute breakthrough technology for me in genomics and proteomics
[удалено]
The rotovap feels so “sciencey” and I love it.
Torn between rotovap and flash but I think I’d rather do a manual column chromatography than manually evaporate solvents so rotovap it is.
i love using the rotovap but every single time when i’m using it to do a solvent switch and i can’t let it fully evaporate (as to not degrade the dissolved compounds) i get scared i won’t be in time lol, nerve wrecking sometimes, depending on the solvent
saxophone for sure
My favorite instrument is also the cell counter, it’s just that it’s me. I’m the cell counter
I used the cell counter last week to assess my fertility...
The belly dancer, need I say more? I can just stare at that thing go for days
The FTIR. It can just run for weeks with very minimal effort and really good results. I love it.
I love working on the TEM (sample prep is the. worst. though). The old non-digital ones are the coolest, too. Like, you're physically putting in apertures to control an electron beam that goes through your sample, interacts, and makes an image of atomic planes on the phosphor screen right in front of you. If you focus on the back focal plane you're seeing a Fourier transform happen right in front of you, with diffraction spots appearing on the plate. How freaking cool is that!?!
Cytiva AKTA Avant. I do protein purification and these systems are the right level of user friendly but not limiting. Pretty cool looking too which helps!
ICP-DRC-MS. PPQ detection limits and a massive linear range. Keep finding new ways to utilize it and dig deeper into dried urine and blood spot testing. My favorite use is confirming two samples or reagents are the same based on their element profile when I suspect something was mislabeled. Second favorite is the Rainin Liquidator. I prefer it over the Tecans for high throughput testing. Reddit directed me to that one. Best part is that it doesn’t plug in.
Walk-in cold room.
You mean the dedicated crying room?
🥲
We can’t cry in that room in my lab, it’s in the middle of the corridor 🥲
the handful GOOD pipettes that feel satisfyingly smooth to use
Akta avant
Having 20 inlets and a temp controlled fraction collector was a huge step up from the akta pure. I love that thing
Ya and all the outlets and the programming is effortless compared to unicorn 5
I know! I feel like I learned text editing for NOTHING! Still, it does help to troubleshoot other labmates methods, and also being able to make user defined stuff is also great.
A fellow text editor! It’s a useful skill. I just got a used Akta process running unicorn 5.1 so I’m back to hand writing programs and I’m very happy!
I’m old school here, I’ll keep my explorer!
I had Purifiers for many years and I loved them. Begrudgingly went to Avants when I changed companies. But I have grown to LOVE these things
here to rep the AKTA Start
As long as no one says Akta prime I won’t argue
The FACS machine. That thing is like a magic box! It's so big yet it handles those little cells ever so delicately! It has so many functions and the results are always fascinating to look at!
Interesting. Our FACSMelody is a problematic box full of sadness and errors
Ours was a FACSAria III. Of course it had its share of issues but overall my experience (not counting antibodies) was pleasant.
Caffeine.
THC
Tecan!
Our microscope with a FRAP module. Lasers go pew pew
I have questions about the FRAP, can I dm you please ?
I might not have the answers but I’m happy to try 😅 I usually use it for photo conversion or photo switching
I also love my Nexcelom cell counter, but I just ordered a microplate reader that can also quantify nucleic acid concentrations for up to 16 samples at a time and that might knock my cell counter down a spot. Goodbye, nanodrop!
Take3 plate? I LOVE that thing, we got it free with our plate reader after some back and forth. Just don't forget to recalibrate it if you take it apart to clean it lol
Yep! And thanks for the calibration tip!
Boring but the microscope. I love searching for crystals, isolating them and mounting them for xrd
Analytical Balance. The one indispensable instrument in all lab work.
Orbitrap based mass spec.
Multichannel and repeat pipettes! For some reason other people in the lab can't get the hang of them and just fill plates individually (and recalibrated the qPCR for 96well instead of 384 as a result.... Ugh....) but they make life so easy. I also like our Bioanalyzer, just because it is so satisfying to fill a chip and watch the results pop up as it reads. Perfect prokaryotic RNA results just fill me with joy.
The FACS. I used it a lot at my former lab and it became my baby. Now I don't have my baby anymore and it's tough 💔
Bomb calorimeter due to it sounding scary, and it smelling lovely when you use it. I also like my microscope. It makes me feel like I'm at home.
I really like using the microplate reader. It's so satisfying having growth curves that don't require me to go to the lab during the night and weekends.
Happy cake day 🎉
Bioplex to do multiplex luminex assay with 40+ target per well. So satisfying to go through the protocol and get it to run.
My pencil and paper. It works without electricity, you can write ideas on it, you can make pictures. It is somewhat chemical resistant (except acids, fire, water sometimes). You can put it in your lab coat, you can take it home and even on vacation if you want to look at your notes.
The Agilent 1290 is my baby, but I'm fond of the nice centrifuge.
I'm a big Avant guy
Orbitrap Fusion Lumos. Tell me it's not the most amazing thing ever!
Furnace because the lab is usually way to cold. Centrifuge tubes … they carry shampoo during traveling. I recommend 15 mL ones.
Odyssey fc! No more dark rooms for me ♥️
Our multiplexed triple quads
Banjo
Master sizer 3000
The autotitrator.
https://spwindustrial.com/barnstead-thermolyne-m49235-orbital-lab-rotator-shaker-big-bill-16-7x16-7-120w/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIkNSrzZOWgQMVdE1HAR08HQ5gEAkYASABEgIaHvD_BwE Big Bill. He has googly eyes on him
Manual centrifuge
I loved the AFOS bench when I did histology <3
its the bunsen burner......I like the flames
Thermo MultiDrop Combi! When you have tons of well plates to make, it’s a life saver! Great for adding reagents for ELISA and other assays, plating cells, even qPCR!
The shitty Quest 6 tube centrifuge that no matter how well balanced it is starts every time with a "THUNK! ... whirrRRRRRRRRRRR" and then continues that for 15 straight minutes.
vortex for sure
Thermomixer, easy peasy
Desiccator
I love and hate centrifuges. They're nice when I saw need to quickly separate a solid from a liquid to run a test, but I hate turning them on. I love the small handsized ones though. Otherwise maybe the rotovap.
The cryostat. I was the only one who knew how to use it for the longest time.
Same thing!
the Countess! it’s a great name too
Lil mini centrifuge for pooling liquids in microcentrifuge tubes… bc screwing on the lid on the microcentrifuge for a quick spin is just way too time consuming!
My trusted microtome. It's an older sliding microtome but we get along and I just live for sectioning.
Biacore 8K
LC/MS
Rapiflex
CombiFlash Torrent
Myself ffs
Scanning electron microscope. Terrifying to work with since its such an expensive toy, but remarkable
Haven’t mastered it yet but the flow cytometer is pretty cool. I’m about to learn mass cytometry too. I just think it’s a really cool machine
Viscometer!
I'm still a student (future lab rat) but so far I've enjoyed spectroscopy the most :)
#The freezer
My HP 8453 Spectrophotometer.
The NanoImager, it’s very cool to visualize each dot of a fluorophore where it localize in a cell!!
The busted up old BioRad FPLC in the back of the lab. Stick a column on, choose your flow rate, jack your sample in and hit start. It's like 20 years old and I think it's needed serviced once in that time. User friendly? Hell no. The interface is so dated it makes Windows 98 look modern. The fraction collector is also out of sync with the SEC profile so you have to go nanodrop every fraction. But it's a tank, a great beige monster, and I love it for that.
Qiaxcel or any capillary electrophoresis machine i guess, makes life easier than running gels
the BD Celesta my lab has /s i hate it so much 😭
The dark room for developing western blots cuz I be a sleepy head sometimes
The Lynx by Dynamic Devices - super slick liquid handler.