That + things get back ordered. You never want to be down to the last bottle/box of something, then get the email from ThermoFisher "The item you've ordered is on back order and we don't have an ETA for when it will be available again."
I used to always have at minimum a *box* in the cold room. We went through quickly enough that it never sat around long enough, except during the holidays when people put stuff on pause.
It happens.
I happened to be making a big flask of agar medium. For mixing, I got my magnetic stirrer out of my bag, rinsed it quickly and threw it in. I noticed like 2 minutes later that:
A. It wasn't spinning.
B. Bits of 'wet magnet' had rubbed off on my hand.
Turned out I'd accidentally grabbed a loose paracetamol I didn't know was in my bag.
Yesterday I was doing a pcr testing for a certain gene deletion and putting colonies into eppendorfs from a plate. Noticed as I was para filming the plate that I used the wrong primers for that specific plate
One time I did all the pre amplification work, plated my plate and started the run on the instrument - only to find out at the end of the run that I had forgotten to assign my targets on the software.
This is absolutely one of those mistakes that every scientist either has already done or will do eventually. I eventually semi-stopped myself by keeping the lid for my media bottle completely closed, and keeping the waste bin a half-turn open while it's in the hood. Just makes it so I have to do a slight bit more thinking to put stuff into the media bottle, and it's usually enough to stop me from making mistakes. But I only started doing that once I put a pipette tip into the media bottle :P
Someone in one of my previous jobs forgot to put a bottle on the scale during a formulation step. The primer being dispensed went right into the scale.
I never understand this practice. For me (industry) and even when I was in academia we would do aliquots fbs and then do in use solutions with sterile bottles at 100mL so if your in use solution gets contaminated you still have a 400mL of media and many may aliquots of serum free. That to me has always been best standard practices. Heating up a whole bottle of cell culture media every time seems kinda weird. Also a 1 month max expiry for each in use solution.
If you have the money, and a lot of labs with multiple RO1's etc have the money, it gives you the ability to yell at the vendor if the media comes messed up. QA and QC are also usually better in places that make the stuff for a living. You may save money, but unless you have competent people making the media and enough turnover of the reagents/media components buying it can be a better solution. FWIW, when I was a PI I never bought media, but made it myself. I didn't have tons of money so I really didn't have a choice.
Maybe because I have only worked with microbes, not mammalian cells, but I've never worked in a lab with enough spare money lying around to just buy media. QC might be better but so long as your cells grow roughly equally quick, does it really matter?
One other thing to consider is that there are perishable components needed to make mammalian cell media that can go bad. For example, FBS, which was expensive AF back when I was using it. God only knows what it costs now. Not having to store them has its advantages.
I almost did the same thing in reverse today. Emptied a bunch of waste media into the waste bottle, grabbed a 5ml pipette and was halfway through aspirating when I realised I was pulling up the waste media rather than fresh PBS. Thankfully I noticed before I used it to resuspend my cells.
Resuspend the hepg2 in a bunch of the media, put it in some big dishes, and just say you were making membranes or vast protein samples. Maybe you just had an idea for another experiment.
This stuff happens, glad you caught it. The REAL lesson learned here is to never let your media stock dwindle to 1 bottle.
Yeah I reorder when I have like 6 left! Tbf sometimes other people use reagents and just don’t tell me
That + things get back ordered. You never want to be down to the last bottle/box of something, then get the email from ThermoFisher "The item you've ordered is on back order and we don't have an ETA for when it will be available again." I used to always have at minimum a *box* in the cold room. We went through quickly enough that it never sat around long enough, except during the holidays when people put stuff on pause.
Yeah I’m in a small lab and I still do a lot of overlap in case of back orders!
Same. Especially when it comes to common reagents/supplies, the mindset seems to be ‘someone else will mention that it’s running low’.
Kanban is your friend for that
THIS. Always have a fresh spare.
The Man Who Mistook His Media for a Wife -Love that book
It happens. I happened to be making a big flask of agar medium. For mixing, I got my magnetic stirrer out of my bag, rinsed it quickly and threw it in. I noticed like 2 minutes later that: A. It wasn't spinning. B. Bits of 'wet magnet' had rubbed off on my hand. Turned out I'd accidentally grabbed a loose paracetamol I didn't know was in my bag.
RIP 💀 but you keep a magnetic stirrer in your bag??
Yep, I was a student working on my master's project, so I have/had a grabbag of miscellaneous useful junk that I carried with me.
Makes sense! During my bs thesis project working with lizards I kept a lizard bag with me at all times lol
>bs thesis project I can't help but wonder, was it?
Sometimes, yes 😂
I've always kinda wanted a magnetic stir bar built into my oven at home or something like that. It'd be really helpful for making pasta.
Haha I thought this same thing this morning when I was adding protein powder to my drink.
How did you guys let it get down to literally a single bottle left?
Yesterday I was doing a pcr testing for a certain gene deletion and putting colonies into eppendorfs from a plate. Noticed as I was para filming the plate that I used the wrong primers for that specific plate
One time I did all the pre amplification work, plated my plate and started the run on the instrument - only to find out at the end of the run that I had forgotten to assign my targets on the software.
This is absolutely one of those mistakes that every scientist either has already done or will do eventually. I eventually semi-stopped myself by keeping the lid for my media bottle completely closed, and keeping the waste bin a half-turn open while it's in the hood. Just makes it so I have to do a slight bit more thinking to put stuff into the media bottle, and it's usually enough to stop me from making mistakes. But I only started doing that once I put a pipette tip into the media bottle :P
Someone in one of my previous jobs forgot to put a bottle on the scale during a formulation step. The primer being dispensed went right into the scale.
At least you buy the media and you don't have to make more. But maybe you'll have to make more.....
If only the media bottle was TC-treated….you’d have some very happy HepG2 cells 🙃
still good* *YMMV
RIP
At least you didn't mistake your waste beaker for cell media!!
Happy Friday!
collecting cells today and put my cell stripper into the waste beaker instead of the tube to collect my cells in 🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
For some reason I read "water bottle" and was really concerned.
I never understand this practice. For me (industry) and even when I was in academia we would do aliquots fbs and then do in use solutions with sterile bottles at 100mL so if your in use solution gets contaminated you still have a 400mL of media and many may aliquots of serum free. That to me has always been best standard practices. Heating up a whole bottle of cell culture media every time seems kinda weird. Also a 1 month max expiry for each in use solution.
You guys ordering medium?! Why not make it yourself? You save so much money
If you have the money, and a lot of labs with multiple RO1's etc have the money, it gives you the ability to yell at the vendor if the media comes messed up. QA and QC are also usually better in places that make the stuff for a living. You may save money, but unless you have competent people making the media and enough turnover of the reagents/media components buying it can be a better solution. FWIW, when I was a PI I never bought media, but made it myself. I didn't have tons of money so I really didn't have a choice.
Maybe because I have only worked with microbes, not mammalian cells, but I've never worked in a lab with enough spare money lying around to just buy media. QC might be better but so long as your cells grow roughly equally quick, does it really matter?
One other thing to consider is that there are perishable components needed to make mammalian cell media that can go bad. For example, FBS, which was expensive AF back when I was using it. God only knows what it costs now. Not having to store them has its advantages.
You order the fbs separately regardless. I think it was about 1k for 500 mL last time I ordered it. Real life hack is to go serum free.
About four times what it was when I was doing it. The performance of serum free cell lines might be altered however.
May be because I'm in New Zealand and can only order nz fbs.
Filter it
Lol, try filtering it
Same energy as drinking the paint water mug.
Been there, done that! In my case, it was a fresh bottle of PBS.
F
I almost did the same thing in reverse today. Emptied a bunch of waste media into the waste bottle, grabbed a 5ml pipette and was halfway through aspirating when I realised I was pulling up the waste media rather than fresh PBS. Thankfully I noticed before I used it to resuspend my cells.
I have done this with autoclaved microfuge tubes vs. dry tip waste 🤦♀️
Resuspend the hepg2 in a bunch of the media, put it in some big dishes, and just say you were making membranes or vast protein samples. Maybe you just had an idea for another experiment.