Real Time Contamination

Well, I figured I haven't blogged in a while, and I may as well because I have some semi-exciting things I could write about.

So last Thursday, my mom came up to Logan to spend the day with me. I called her the night before just to chat, and I think she could tell that I really needed her to come up or something, because I really did. So we worked out that the next day I could just miss my Institute class and the first part of work and she could come up and I could spend time with her. We ended up just going grocery shopping, and then going out to lunch to Sizzler together. It was soo great to just get away from my little world that I live in every day and get back to reality and realize what really matters! (I love you mom!)

On Friday, my friend Siri had an Oktoberfest party. Don't worry...it was completely non-alcoholic :) Basically the whole point of it was for her to teach us how to cook German food, and then we ate it! She's half German, so it was even pretty legit. I don't remember the names of anything really, so my descriptions will be pretty vague...but regardless, it was all really good! First off, we of course had Bratwurt, and then we had some egg noodle/dumpling things (they taste JUST like egg noodles we make for stroganoff, but they're homemade!), and then some potato/onion stuff. For dessert, we had poppyseed cake. To drink, I brought some apple cider. The entire meal was super delicious! We didn't have saeurkraut (sp?) because none of us liked it. It was really fun to learn how to cook all of these things and then be able to eat them!

At work, one week ago today, I was given the assignment to calibrate the Real Time PCR machine, which *should* be an easy task. All you have to do is put some pre-made PCR plates in the machine (or, for the background, a plate with H20), and run some tests, and hopefully the machine will still be calibrated correctly. If it's not, then you just have to do some minor cleanings or fixings depending on what's wrong. Well, I ran my background calibration plate, and it said that there were a bunch of contaminated wells! So, I followed the directions, and I cleaned the metal plate in the machine with H20. I ran the calibration again. Still contaminated. I cleaned with EtOH (Ethanol), then H20, and ran the calibration again. Still contaminated. So I cleaned with bleach, then EtOH, the H20 (this is all as directed in the instruction booklet). Still contaminated! LONG STORY SHORT: I spent all through Friday cleaning and calibrating. On Friday, I was down to 10 (out of 96) contaminated well. First off, I have NOOOO idea how they got contaminated, and I had NOOO idea how they were to get any better cleaned then what I was doing.

The cleaning involved a tedious process of suctioning the fluid into the well, and suctioning it back up, and then carefully scrubbing/drying it out with the end of a Q-Tip that had had the cotton ripped off equal just the perfect amount. For each. and. every. single. well. It took hours. All my work hours last week.

Anyway. I left the machine to dry completely on Friday absolutely confident that I could come back on Monday to a perfectly clean machine.

On Monday (yesterday) I went to the lab, and put in the background plate for the calibration. I sat there and anxiously awaited the results. Remember...10 previously contaminated wells. The results popped up... 55 CONTAMINATED WELLS. WHAT!? oh no :( how is that even possible?! I didn't even touch the other 86 that weren't contaminated!! I talked with the lab tech for a while, and we couldn't think of a solution.

We got in new Real Time PCR plates right as I left the lab on Monday. The lab tech said we could test those the next day. I guess that gave me incentive to continue...

I got to work today, and the lab tech said that Sam tested it earlier with the new plates and (drum roll please)...IT PASSED!!! AND...(get this)...it was three times cleaner than it had to be to even qualify as non-contaminated! Which totally makes sense given how many hours I spent cleaning the thing..

Sorry to spend ranting time talking about how I clean a Real Time PCR machine. No one in the world even cares about that, I know. But hey. I had to write about something :) And considering that all I do is lab work and homework, I figured I'd write about the more interesting of the two...