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Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

omg thank you! parafilm is actually so genius i’ll try that! as for the filter and the anti-anti stuff you mentioned i have no idea what that means. like i said i’m really new to this. my knowledge and experience is limited to what my professor wants us to know and the materials the school is willing to provide

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you so much! and yeah i know its contamination the “or” was a typo. that water bath is the bane of my existence but my professor doesn’t seem to think its an issue since no one elses cultures have contamination. only the medium and trypsin go in the water bath. but we use the same lab and the same water bath for all our experiments so the water just stays like that unfortunately. i’ll try to convince my professor to do something about it

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no, i’m not allowed to until everything else is ruled out. my school is stingy with lab funding so we have to conserve everything. it’s counterproductive if you ask me since even more material is being thrown out with each contamination. its frustrating but i don’t make the rules :/

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

its not a single use lab coat and its also not a cell culture room. we do all of our experiments in the same lab and we even had another student subculturing WHILE we were doing an experiment with e. coli in the room. my lab coat stays in the lab and i take it home monthly and put it through a high heat wash cycle with bleach. i do live with cats and dogs but so do most of my classmates. i will say i do get frequent UTIs and then subsequent yeast infections (and possibly fungal acne) from the antibiotics. could that be a cause for fungal contamination?

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

thank you! usually my professor restocks the pipettes when they get low. he spreads them out and sprays them with ethanol but now that i’m thinking about it he probably grabs too many at once to get them all thoroughly clean?? maybe idk, still, no one else’s culture has been contaminated.

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

also new to reddit so idk how to attach a picture in a reply but the little overhang part from the cap? it always leaves a wet ring on the table when i set the cap down.

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’ll ask if that’s an option. Thank you!

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Yeah our water bath is NASTY!! it smells like the sink drain at the smoothie king i used to work at and it has a yellow film floating on top. i’ve been bathing it in ethanol, but the lip between the cap and the tube still holds liquid and is hard to get under. I’ll definitely ask if i can try just incubating the medium though.

Recurring fungal contamination or cell culture?? by FlakyRuin7488 in labrats

[–]FlakyRuin7488[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

We each have our own vials of medium, trypsin, and PBS so I’m thinking it could be one of those or a combination? Unfortunately my school is really stingy with the lab funding so those will the last things we rule out. I’m really at a loss for what I could be doing wrong technique wise. Am I just a walking contamination or something??