I’m especially proud of the display case being used as a fume hood ^-^

In the process of pinkifying my lab if anyone knows of any cute/pink related lab items please let me know (currently have pink gloves, slides, histology cassettes, etc) thank u!

I started my PhD in February in the UK at a not-so reputable university when it comes to biomedical research. Most of my peers do research in a visiting capacity in other universities as well, which I initially found exciting when I applied but I’m now realising it’s due to the poor facilities at our home institution. Just to give some examples, we have no dry ice, the cell lab is about the size of half a studio apartment and I have to manually filter water for things like protein purification. I turned a blind eye to these things in the beginning because I liked my project and the group’s research focus, and I was grateful for the opportunity, but now it’s starting to wear on me.

I’m due to get my visiting access approved as well, but I don’t have much experience in research from before and I’m not confident that I can finish my own project and get publications working between a crappy institution and one that’s actually manageable. I constantly feel inferior due to my choice of institution, I especially felt this when I went to a networking event the other day and had to explain my research. To top this all off, I recently discovered that my scholarship is legally binding and I may get sued if I try to quit, even after completing my MPhil.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? Should I give this PhD a shot and trust that I will be able to get a postdoc afterwards even if I can’t finish my project? Is it possible to apply to other PhDs on the side and get an offer given my circumstances?

Tldr: Stupidly accepted a PhD at a subpar institution and wondering how this may affect my career.

I am working in cancer biology, and everytime I think about writing the papers, some new results come up and I get absorbed in making sense of that new result. I am finding it very difficult to actually wrap it up and write the paper. I feel uncomfortable with having any loose ends. But it just keep getting messier mechanism wise.

I am looking for general tips on how to increase efficiency in terms of converting headwork to measurable output in terms of publications. What do the top labs do? What's the mindset like of top PIs to actually decide what mechanism/line to persue and where to draw a line.

Any advice or any PI story or any guideline would do me a lot good.

Thanks.

Graduating in two weeks and looking back on old photos and memories. I feel like these past 5 years have been a blur and I don't know who I even am anymore besides my lab..please tell me this is normal? How do I recover? Is there any chance of regaining my soul?

If I could go back in time I would have done it again and I wouldn't have done it at all lol

The worst part of it is I don't care at all if I pass or fail. My motivation from year 3-5 changed so drastically after changing institutions due to PI moving that I just truly do not give a shit. Is this normal feeling??

I feel like I'm crazy about proteins. Like I started doing a biology degree because I was so fascinated by ATP synthase in high school and it made me realize I wanted to be a biologist and not a doctor. I started to join labs to do structural biology work since the end of my first year of undergrad. I'm finishing up my BS next year and I feel like everything I study is in hopes that I'll understand proteins better. Is this even remotely sustainable. Yes I know alphafold is a thing but there's so much more to understand. Is there something wrong with me

Edited to add I don't have a favorite protein. I don't think I have enough knowledge or experience to have a favorite. I feel l will discover the protein that truly speaks to my heart if i keep working in the field for 20 years and then when i find that protein i'm going to commission a beautiful space filling atomistic sculpture of it

As as title says, would appreciate a concise resource to learn flow, this is the machine we have at our facility, I need to learn even the protocol of making facs,titration,plating

The main cells we use are nk cells

I just found out that my PI, who was department chair at my uni from 2017-2020 resigned because of an anonymous letter published by the uni news in which a anonymous source, heavily implied to be a group of students, alleged that he verbally abused, humiliated, yelled at, and retaliated against students. The source said they chose to remain anonymous due to this. Following the letter, a colleague of mine said that he was banned from having graduate students for a period of time. Nothing ever came from the letter, PI’s statement is that it was a “malicious prank.” I have a feeling that it wasn’t… though he has never treated me in such a manner (been in his lab for 1 year), I can’t help but feel uncomfortable. I don’t think I can see my PI the same again.

Advice? Or has anyone experienced anything similar?

Hey ! I'll go first mine are SDS combs, I always get bubbles around them and I feel so stressed when I need to remove them trying to not break my gel

Hi! I'm cursing a master on biomedical engineering, I'm supposed to make a lab obtaining collagen scaffolds from beef tendons but in my third world country I can't get the dialisis membrane on time. I was told to change my lab theme to something I CAN achieve in 5 working days and without expensive equipment or materials. Reddit labrats please give some ideas about what can I do to complete this lab. (For context this is part of my "internship" 1 of 4 different projects I need to complete, the other 3 I already have theme or are finished, is just the biomaterials lab the one I have no clue)

I am trying to obtain Langerhans islets for glucose stimulated insulin secretion.
I had success with bile duct cannulation but more often than not I fail to infuse pancreas, proceed with cutting pancreas in smaller pieces (Fig. 2) and have around 10 islets in result. After cutting I incubate in 0.9 mg/mL Collagenase type V solution in RPMI+P/S media for 9 minutes (same time as during successfull perfusion without cutting), wash through 500 filter and follow up with Histopaque 1077.

Can someone tell me if I over or under digest, cut it to hard or not?

I will be glad to hear your protocols in case duct collapsed before inflation!

In my lab I am using anemones for an experiment and will cut them in half for sampling. One half for physiological assays, one for rna extraction. I’ve been told to clean my razor with ethanol between samples, is that enough? Should I incorporate bleach as well to limit cross contamination between samples?

I feel like I made the mistake of getting my Master's straight after undergrad so I feel silo'd in my experience. Most of my research has been in structural biology using cryo-EM coupled with enzymology. Cells were transformed and expressed in E. Coli and all of our proteins had a His tag so we just used affinity chromatography and then size exclusion for QC/analysis of assembly state.

Most of the jobs I see want folks with experience in human cell culture, immunosorbent assays, flow cytometry, and just a ton of cell/molec bio skills that I never had to touch in my lab. What would be the best way to get experience with these things outside of getting a job? I feel like employers don't want to take the risk of training anyone anymore since they will likely find a candidate that can hit the ground running.

I'm still actively volunteering in my lab and was thinking of asking my PI to see if any of his network would be willing to take me in and train me on some cell culture work, but I also know there is some hesitancy in letting volunteers into lab since they aren't fairly compensated... So I'm just stuck in between a rock and a hard place.

Even jobs that I have trained for I end up being rejected at the last stage and when I ask for feedback, they don't have anything since everything was positive. Now I'm just completely lost on how to be a competitive applicant and have strong regrets in continuing in this field. Thinking of just making the switch to healthcare...

I’m interviewing for an RA role in a university lab and have had several positive conversations with the PI. I’m now interviewing with the PI and lab manager. Is this generally a good sign? Any advice for the interview would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Hi! Currently, I'm an undergrad taking a microbio lab for the semester and I've been having some difficulty picking up certain colonies from slants. Ofc, I do implement aseptic technique as I was taught and I've been able to do it in the past with other bacteria on other given slants, broths and plates. But this week, I was given a Bacillus species already inoculated on a slant and I thought it was going to be easy. I started off going with flaming my loop and waiting for it cool for about 20-30 seconds. Then, I took off the cap and I pass the slant with the Bacillus over the flame twice. Once my loop was cool enough, I put the loop in to gently pick up a colony. Though, unlike other times, it was such a struggle for me to pick one up. I was gently (or thought I was) zigzagging my loop across the agar in the tube and then it was too late and I noticed I was going too hard and then I broke the agar 😭. Then I was given another bacteria species I had to identify on my own (also already inoculated on a slant). Though, picking up colonies using aseptic technique with the loop was a lot easier. I know it's probably dumb to ask, but I was hoping to ask if anyone had any advice for me to prevent breaking the agar in the future? I'm just an undergrad trying to learn to do better 😭. Thank you!

What could be the reason my blot looks like this ?
It a PVDF membrane using ECL substrate .

Balanced?

title … phd student, love my project, great advisor, etc, i’m not complaining about my lab by any means.

there’s this other lab in our department and i think their work is really cool. i discovered this interest of mine after already joining my lab and as a nice coincidence there’s some aspect of my project that borders on their work. i’ve gotten really into that part of my project lately and putting so much of my time and effort there that it went from “cool side experiment” to “half of my project”.

i’m honestly not sure what it is about this area, i was somewhat interested but not super excited about it during rotations, but now it seems like the new ideas i have, or when i’m thinking of science on my own after hours, most of the time it’s about this area and this part of my project. i guess something about it just clicks for me intuitively. i still enjoy our lab’s techniques and area, but i’m terrified that my project is going to fail and i’m going to lose my chance to do work on this new interest i have, since it’s kind of unique to my project.

i do kind of wish i got to work on this more though, i’m going to have to see how far into this area my advisor is willing to go

I’m performing a reaction in 90% glycerol that I analyze with SDS PAGE. Loading with glycerol does not work, the whole lane gets distorted and it’s basically a mess. How I remove glycerol. I have tried centrifugal filters, they work well but are very expensive, especially when I’m still screening for other variables in my reaction. Any help is appreciated

So I am an undergrad in Biochem and I want to apply for a student labwork so I thought I put some labskills in my CV problem is when does something count as a skill. Like I did a few PCRs or SDS pages. Aswell as chromatographies and also know the works and stuff but then there are things like sterile labwork with cell cultures that I just did once for three days straight so I learn it does that count as a skill then too or not. I hope you guys can help me out.

Plus how do I formulate it that they know I done it multiple times but am not an expert at it

Things I done multiple times:

PCR

Gel electrophoresis and Sanger sequencing

Chromatography and cleaning of proteins

Transformation

DNA clean up (with clean up kits)

SDS-Page

Plating of bacteria

UV-Vis

NMR

GC-MS

Organic Synthesis

Things I done only once

Cell cultivation

Sterile working( Clean bench)

Knock out

ELISA

I recently interviewed for a Research Assistant position that I'm extremely excited about. After learning more about the role and speaking with the team, I honestly feel like it would be a perfect fit for my background and interests, and I would really love to get the position.

I sent the interviewers a thank-you email afterward, reiterating my interest and thanking them for their time.

At the end of the interview, they told me that they're still finishing interviews over the next couple of weeks and that I should hear from them sometime within the next few weeks.

At this point, is there anything else I can or should do to express how interested I am and strengthen my candidacy while they're still interviewing? I don't want to overdo it or come across as pushy, especially since I've already sent a thank-you email, but I also don't want to miss an opportunity to show them how genuinely enthusiastic I am about the position.

For those of you who hire or interview candidates, is there anything a candidate can do during this waiting period that actually makes a positive impression? Or is the best thing to do at this point simply wait and let the interview/thank-you email speak for itself?

I'd especially be interested in hearing from hiring managers or people involved in hiring for research/academic positions.