I handle some pretty nasty bacteria in the lab such as pseudomonas aeruginosa, staphylococcus aureus, and streptococcus pneumoniae. none of the strains are as bad as MRSA, but if i’m not careful, I could end up very sick. That’s why we have risk assessments for our experiments, and specialised staff who are there to make sure we know how to be careful. I also boil samples in nitric acid at 96C which could be very nasty if the tubes exploded (we have special ones which shouldn’t but you never know, so i wear a lot of safety gear!)
I work with a chemical which can burn your skin, and if you try to wash it away with water it won’t go anywhere! So I wear a lab coat, safety goggles and gloves, as well as only using it in a ventilated hood. We also have a special kit in the case of accidents – since it can’t be washed away with water, we use a liquid called glycerol instead. I’ve never had an accident with it though.
I use cancer cells in my research. PC12 cells (neuronal tumour) exhibit a good example of neurons. I also work with HeLa cells which are cervical cancer cells. I have to grow these cells in cell culture, so it always poses a risk of contamination whenever I’m handling cancer cells.
Furthermore, occasionally I handle lentivirus for gene delivery. Lentivirus is harmless as it is reproduction incompetent but at the end of the day it is a very aggressive virus and a simple mutation can turn these guys into quite dangerous viruses.
The most dangerous experiment I have to do is with phenol:chloroform. Its part of extracting DNA from cells. Nasty dangerous stuff! It needs to used in the fume hood so all the vapours are sucked away instead of floating in the air.
I handle some pretty nasty bacteria in the lab such as pseudomonas aeruginosa, staphylococcus aureus, and streptococcus pneumoniae. none of the strains are as bad as MRSA, but if i’m not careful, I could end up very sick. That’s why we have risk assessments for our experiments, and specialised staff who are there to make sure we know how to be careful. I also boil samples in nitric acid at 96C which could be very nasty if the tubes exploded (we have special ones which shouldn’t but you never know, so i wear a lot of safety gear!)
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I work with a chemical which can burn your skin, and if you try to wash it away with water it won’t go anywhere! So I wear a lab coat, safety goggles and gloves, as well as only using it in a ventilated hood. We also have a special kit in the case of accidents – since it can’t be washed away with water, we use a liquid called glycerol instead. I’ve never had an accident with it though.
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I use cancer cells in my research. PC12 cells (neuronal tumour) exhibit a good example of neurons. I also work with HeLa cells which are cervical cancer cells. I have to grow these cells in cell culture, so it always poses a risk of contamination whenever I’m handling cancer cells.
Furthermore, occasionally I handle lentivirus for gene delivery. Lentivirus is harmless as it is reproduction incompetent but at the end of the day it is a very aggressive virus and a simple mutation can turn these guys into quite dangerous viruses.
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The most dangerous experiment I have to do is with phenol:chloroform. Its part of extracting DNA from cells. Nasty dangerous stuff! It needs to used in the fume hood so all the vapours are sucked away instead of floating in the air.
I also use 2-mercaptoethanol – its really stinky!
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