A day in the life

People often ask me what it is I actually do in lab (not what I’m studying, but what I physically do with my time in the lab). Here’s a rundown of Thurs. Sept. 4:

10:20–Arrive in lab

10:30-11:30–extract DNA from bacteria

11:30-11:35–Label tubes, check yeast cultures to see if they are dense enough for an experiment (they’re not), watch a mock fight between two labmates who are using giant pillow boxing gloves

11:35-11:45–Set up and start running DNA gel of a PCR product.

11:45-12:00–Write on blog, check email, send email.

12:00-12:40–Buy lunch, come back to lab, eat lunch at desk while reading blogs.

12:40-12:50–Stop running gel from earlier, visualize DNA, swear because it looks like crap, print out picture of crappy gel, throw away gel, clean up gel running apparatus.

12:50-1:10–Design and set up new PCR and start running it.

1:10-1:30–Discuss with labmate possible alternative strategies to get around PCR problem.

1:30-2:30–Work on planning alternate strategy to get around PCR problem; check to see if yeast cultures are ready for another experiment (they’re not).

2:30-3:00–Hunted down reagents for yeast experiment. This took a lot longer than it should have.

3:00-4:00–One yeast culture finally ready for experiment. Start purifying protein from this culture. Freeze bacteria cultures in our frozen stock collection during the down time in the experiment.

4:00-4:20–Go get tea with labmates.

4:20-4:40–Freeze bacteria cultures in our frozen stock collection. While doing this, have discussion with labmates about letter in Science about publishing.

4:40-5:30–I have no idea what I did during this time. I forgot to write it down for the blog. How can I lose track of an hour? Probably checked email, wrote in lab notebook, planned experiments for tomorrow and chatted with a few people.

5:45-6:45–Other culture finally ready for experiment. Do protein purification experiment with yeast from this culture.

6:45-7:45–Streak yeast plates, start bacterial cultures to freeze and purify DNA from tomorrow, send DNA for sequencing (we have a facility that does all of our DNA sequencing).

7:45–leave lab

This was a pretty typical day.  Usually, I’d talk to my adviser once or twice in there but he’s out of the country at a conference.  Also, I came in a little later than usual.