I started my research on Sunday. It actually takes about 5 days of prep time before we can analyze the samples and since Friday is July 4, we wanted to get started in time. Luckily, one of my mentor’s grad students was willing to come in help me. That prep took about 4 hours and we discussed the methods and procedure going forward. Yesterday was pretty intense, although for a good portion of it I was watching water drip (ok, it wasn’t exactly just water, but that’s the joke around here) – as I was conditioning several Solid Phase Extraction Graphitized Carbograph Columns. We had to use HLPC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) water which I was told cost about $300 per 4L bottle. I told the grad student that that was more than my budget for most years – she was shocked. The research world is truly different in many ways than the world of public education.
Today is long but relatively relaxed. I had to freeze the samples overnight at -80C and the first five-six hours of today they are in an evaporating centrifuge. Then I’m going to re-suspend them, mix them together again and then freeze them…then they’re back in the evaporating centrifuge for another 2-3 hours. The prep work is pretty involved, but since the test has only been done a few times, we’re hoping at the end that the results corroborate what they have seen before – of course, the interpretation of the results are the most difficult part (according to my colleagues), so I’m not sure exactly how that’s going to go. Looking forward to it, though.
This sounds just like our prep! Resuspend. Centrifuge. Incubate. Resuspend. Centrifuge. Incubate. Repeat for days…
I’ve also been struck with the differences in funding, though the lab I’m at (being based at a public university) has some funding issues I didn’t expect. There aren’t enough gel spacers of the correct size, for instance. We have to reuse filtering centrifuge tubes. All the same, there budget is HUGE compared to mine. There is an undergrad intern who has a habit of telling me how much every piece of equipment costs…I’ve had to ask her to stop. It makes me nervous…
I definitely understand being nervous about the equipment. We have been using an alternative mass spectrometer because there are a few issues with the main two that they usually use and a grad student and I were trying to get this one calibrated. We had tried once and then she had to go to a meeting, so you she said “just run through this whole process again and see if you can get it calibrated.” I was just a tad nervous. I ran through the calibration and got it closer but then needed some advice so I went to ask another grad student and his response was “you’re on the machine by yourself?” I responded “yeah, right?” because I was as surprised and as concerned as he was.