• Question: do you ever get scared or worried that you could catch a disease or micro-organism you are growing in the lab or there could be a cross contamination

    Asked by ella to Andy, Dwaine, Natt, Priya, Tatiana on 15 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Natt Day

      Natt Day answered on 15 Jun 2015:

      Hi Ella,

      I suppose there’s always this tiny fear that you will catch it– however we have lots of good safety practices that should make us catching anything a real rare event! We always wear labcoats and gloves, we transfer plates from place to place in sealed containers and we do all our work in hoods which have a glass panel in front of us and also have their own airflow so everything in there should stay in there!

      As for cross contamination, in our lab we’re a bit clean freak about everything. We regularly decontaminate all surfaces with a chemical called virkon which destroys all viruses/bacteria (it’s very nasty stuff!) Also in our lab we try to keep my work on the cold in separate hoods/incubators to other people’s work. We also have quality control tests through PCR (polymerase chain reaction) which confirms I only have my strain of cold in my samples!

      Natt

    • Photo: Tatiana Trantidou

      Tatiana Trantidou answered on 16 Jun 2015:

      Hi Ella,

      in our lab we have very strict rules about contamination, so that we are always safe. We always wear labcoats, goggles to protect our eyes and gloves to protect our skin. We are very careful when we use sharp needles and syringes and we get rid of them into a special container that is removed by special staff.

      As for cross-contamination, we culture our cells in a hood which is always cleaned with ethanol (it kills almost all bacteria and some viruses). We even clean our gloves with ethanol before touching anything. There is a constant flow of air inside the hood that takes away any bacteria/viruses that live in the air (airborne). We always keep our cell cultures inside closed containers to keep airborne microorganisms away from our cells. Finally, we keep the cells warm in the incubator, which is always cleaned with ethanol before.

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