As a follow-up to our recent Documenting Specimen Storage post, here are some key specimen storage tips:

Do:

1.  Keep cross-contamination in mind when storing your specimen samples.  If you work in a lab where researchers are going to be working with acombination of bacteria, yeast, cell cultures and viruses, make sure to store each so that cross-contamination is not a possibility in incubators, freezers, and tissue culture hoods.  Use a labeling system to dedicate specific lab areas.
2.  Use an electronic management system for tracking and managing specimen to streamline collections throughout your lab.  Use a centralized web-based system, such as Labguru’s cloud management system, to create a uniform database for all researchers to upload, track, change and label samples.

If there is something that students quarrel passionately about it is over shared resources. Now, “resource” is a BIG term covering everything from tips for your pipettes to your PI’s time. Today I will talk about shared equipment and how to try and manage the lab in such a way that your machines will serve you efficiently.

The problem and its solution
So the problem is quite obvious – in almost all cases there are more users than copies of the same device which means that some sort of queuing or scheduling is required.

The sequencing of the Saccharomyces Cerviciae (yeast) genome in the mid-1990s revolutionized genetics, allowing researchers to use deletion mutants to study regulation of eukaryotic cells.  The primary techniques up until now have included yeast two-hybrid arrays for studying protein-protein interactions and tetrad dissection for mutation analysis.

The advent of high-throughput genomics to analyze cytotoxicity, programmed cell death, drug target screens, and other disease pathways has revolutionized traditional yeast experimentation methods.  Specimen are now arrayed in libraries, ranging from mid-size collections targeting certain proteins or gene families, to large whole-genome arrays such as the synthetic genetic array to study thousands of genes simultaneously.  Gene knockouts of up to 6,000 genetic mutants can be purchased for study.

Because of their expanded availability and whole-scale approach at a relatively inexpensive cost, genetic yeast libraries and knockouts have become vessels of drug discovery and cell biology across disciplines and areas of study.  Microarray genetic screens have been used to study everything from aging factors, a “Green Screen” cytotoxicity array for various toxic compounds, the regulation of various oncogenes, and even the genetic yeast factors in the development of sauvignon blanc wines!