Laboratory Maintenance
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PRACTICAL WORK AREA
Each student will be allocated a numbered bench space and will be expected to keep their work area clean and tidy.
Each student will be issued with a disposable gown. Store in the supplied plastic ziplock bag. You will need to bring your own safety glasses.
All equipment for the practicals, including writing materials and marker pens, can be found in the drawers adjacent to the bench spaces or in the large drawers under the eastern windows. Please report any missing or damaged items and replace all items at the end of the practical session.
Inoculating loops and autopipettes are on stands in the centre of the bench. Glassware such as beakers, and stains and other reagents can be found in the glass fronted cabinets along the northwest wall of the laboratory. Students generally will not need to access these, please ask a demonstrator if anything needs to be replaced. Stain bottles should always be placed on the stainless steel trays. All staining should be carried out on the metal racks over the sinks. Flush excess stain with running tap water.
LABELLING CULTURES
Label all cultures for incubation with your bench number, date and name of organism plus any special conditions. Label the container with the media in it and NOT THE LID (lids can be mixed up).
INCUBATIONS
Ensure that your materials are placed into the appropriate trays for class incubation (check date and class) or directly into incubators where indicated. Available incubators include aerobic or CO2 at 37oC or in anaerobic jars for anaerobes or organisms with special growth conditions such as Campylobacter spp. Incubators at other temperatures may be used depending on application.
When placing materials directly into incubators, always check that it is of the correct atmosphere type and also check the temperature display on the front of the cabinet. If it is not correct, inform a demonstrator.
Incubators can be found in or adjacent to the annex at the southern end of the laboratory.
Setting up the anaerobic jar video
All contaminated material should be placed on the disposal trolley before the end of the practical. Petri dishes and other non-reusable materials should be placed inside the autoclave bags in the buckets. No paper should be placed in these bags. Contaminated paper, including soiled blotting paper (from staining), and gloves should be placed in the bins labelled "contaminated" or directly into the large yellow biohazard bins. Bottles and other free standing containers, with loosened lids, should be placed in the appropriate trays. Glass test tubes should be placed upright in baskets. Plastic tubes and centrifuge tubes can be placed in the buckets with Petri dishes.
Pipette tips and plastic transfer pipettes can be placed in the small discard beakers on the benches (plastic lined). Eppendorf tubes should also be placed in these containers.
Glass microscope slides and coverslips should be placed into the yellow sharps containers.
CLEANUP
After clearing all materials from bench, spray the benches with 70% ethanol and leave to dry. Before leaving the laboratory, wash your hands and wipe down your books and safety glasses with an alcohol handwipe.
MICROSCOPES
An Olympus CH2 binocular microscope is provided for each student. Microscopes are numbered to correspond with bench numbers. Instructions for setting up and using the microscope can be found in the chapter on Microscopy.
At the end of each practical session:
- Rotate the objectives so that the 10x lens is over the stage.
- Remove all slides and dispose of them into the sharps containers.
- Wipe off all immersion oil with tissues (from oil immersion lens and all other lenses especially the 40x lens). It is very important to remove oil so that the lenses remain clean for other users. Dried-on oil is extremely difficult to remove.
- Replace the cover.
- Leave the microscope on the bench but do not allow it to come into contact with ethanol spray.