Still Just a Rat in a Cage - Laboratory Chat!

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Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

You guys should do a criticality assessment that one. Maybe a cross-functional team can go through the matrix during a few lunchtime meetings.

# ? Jul 10, 2019 23:04

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:07

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

Shrieking Muppet posted:

Just had an argument with my boss over buying a cheap hygrometer to put in our new glove box so that we would know when it�s dry enough to use. Her response was we don�t need one because someone would write it down in their notebook and this wouldn�t be calibrated. When I asked how would we know if the box was sufficiently purged with nitrogen to know if it was dry she said we purged it with nitrogen and the O2 meter would tell us when that was done. Since our procedure says to weigh under nitrogen that�s all we have to do.

I was on the fence about going back to school to get out of the lab but I�m pretty convinced now.

I work in an industry where humidity absolutely matters. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on humidity controlled chambers. It's a rare day when our expensive hygrometers are within 5% of each other on relative humidity. A cheap hygrometer is less useful than sticking your hand in there and seeing how it feels. The O2 sensor is going to be way more accurate than a cheap hygrometer.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 03:57

Shrieking Muppet: Jul 16, 2006

RadioPassive posted:

Does humidity matter? If not, I'm with your boss on this one.

Yeah whole point of weighing under nitrogen is to ensure samples remain dry or make the analyst suffer but I�d like to hope it�s the first reason.

Dik Hz posted:

I work in an industry where humidity absolutely matters. We have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on humidity controlled chambers. It's a rare day when our expensive hygrometers are within 5% of each other on relative humidity. A cheap hygrometer is less useful than sticking your hand in there and seeing how it feels. The O2 sensor is going to be way more accurate than a cheap hygrometer.

Huh, I would have assumed the expensive ones were more accurate and precise. Guess the O2 meter makes more sense then. This might have been explained to my boss since she insisted the O2 sensor was all we needed but couldn�t give me anything past �sample paperwork says we weigh under nitrogen� as to why it was all we needed.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 13:13

RadioPassive: Feb 26, 2012

Sorry, I come from a GMP environment where you never generate more data than you need, and you absolutely do not make a measurement unless the paperwork calls for it.

If the procedure document says "we weigh under nitrogen" and nothing about humidity, then you ignore the humidity and take it up with QA if you think that's a problem.

# ? Jul 11, 2019 13:28

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

Shrieking Muppet posted:

Huh, I would have assumed the expensive ones were more accurate and precise.

Heh. So did my boss until we had spent $10k on hygrometers and still couldn't find 2 that agreed with each other.

# ? Jul 12, 2019 01:16

Amnomia: Jun 12, 2003

RadioPassive posted:

Sorry, I come from a GMP environment

gmp sux lmao

# ? Jul 13, 2019 20:29

Nissin Cup Nudist: Sep 3, 2011; Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land

In my last job before Grad School, we didn't even use units

Checkmate :smuggo:

# ? Jul 14, 2019 04:41

JibbaJabberwocky: Aug 14, 2010

Any advice for someone who can't seem to find a laboratory job despite applying for every lab job within a 45min drive for the past 5 months? I know someone who's applied for 100+ lab jobs after relocating to a new city and hasn't gotten a single callback despite having 5 years of laboratory experience. He did mostly heavy metals testing in water and soil at his old job. Admittedly he's applied for some manufacturing and pharmaceutical lab jobs which are a bit outside of his skill set at the moment but he's applied to a decent number of jobs that sounded perfect for him. He's interested in a more managerial or supervisory role if he can find a position like that as he has experience managing his own lab but has been basically applying for everything vaguely reasonable, including grunt work. He's been networking through local groups and linked-in but is going to step his game up actively seeking out and connecting with hiring managers from the companies he's applying to through linked-in. He's reached out to everyone he knows professionally and has also gone to a local career center for help making sure his resume is good. He's now working to make sure he hits ATS keywords on his resumes by using a ATS scanning service and really working to tailor them for each job.

Anything else he should try that he's not?

# ? Sep 4, 2019 20:53

street doc: Feb 20, 2019

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

Any advice for someone who can't seem to find a laboratory job despite applying for every lab job within a 45min drive for the past 5 months? I know someone who's applied for 100+ lab jobs after relocating to a new city and hasn't gotten a single callback despite having 5 years of laboratory experience. He did mostly heavy metals testing in water and soil at his old job. Admittedly he's applied for some manufacturing and pharmaceutical lab jobs which are a bit outside of his skill set at the moment but he's applied to a decent number of jobs that sounded perfect for him. He's interested in a more managerial or supervisory role if he can find a position like that as he has experience managing his own lab but has been basically applying for everything vaguely reasonable, including grunt work. He's been networking through local groups and linked-in but is going to step his game up actively seeking out and connecting with hiring managers from the companies he's applying to through linked-in. He's reached out to everyone he knows professionally and has also gone to a local career center for help making sure his resume is good. He's now working to make sure he hits ATS keywords on his resumes by using a ATS scanning service and really working to tailor them for each job.

Anything else he should try that he's not?

Management sees non-PhD lab work as mundane, and therefor prefers to automate, outsource, or just train someone from scratch.

# ? Sep 5, 2019 13:38

Cardiac: Aug 28, 2012

street doc posted:

Management sees non-PhD lab work as mundane, and therefor prefers to automate, outsource, or just train someone from scratch.

Isn't that kinda stupid since a good research engineer will regularly be better than someone with a PhD?
At least that is my experience.

# ? Sep 5, 2019 14:22

Artonos: Dec 3, 2018

Thanks for the warning since that's not too far off of what my resume will look like and I wanted to make a similar jump to somewhere else in a year-ish.

# ? Sep 5, 2019 16:45

gninjagnome: Apr 17, 2003

Cardiac posted:

Isn't that kinda stupid since a good research engineer will regularly be better than someone with a PhD?
At least that is my experience.

You're assuming management isn't just looking at the bottom line. We outsource testing out of the country a lot of the time, then get questions why it's taking 4 weeks to get analytical results. It's not my fault it takes weeks to sample and ship something to India, and god forbid there is a temperature excursion along the way...

# ? Sep 5, 2019 23:04

Snack Bitch: May 15, 2008; Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!

Yeah, at the company I work at the chemistry group has gone from 20 to 14 and management doesn�t feel like we need any new hires. When I first started, someone told me they were outsourcing the synthesis of a challenging natural product. My response was�Wow, I can�t believe a company would agree to make that�. Nope, the third party gave up a year later.

# ? Sep 6, 2019 12:51

JibbaJabberwocky: Aug 14, 2010

street doc posted:

Management sees non-PhD lab work as mundane, and therefor prefers to automate, outsource, or just train someone from scratch.

Could you go into this a little bit more? Like I understand industry wide that automating or outsourcing is common but a lot of the positions he's applying for are ones that he exactly fits the bill for. Definitely he's applied for some low tier jobs and some that are a bit of a reach as well, but most of them want 3+ years of lab experience, which is what he brings to the table. So its not that they're aren't any reasonable looking laboratory positions being posted, which could be explained by automation/outsourcing if that were the case, but that he's applying to lots of positions that fit his skillset and not hearing anything back. I understand just wanting to train someone from scratch for the low tier positions but that doesn't work for position that require years of lab experience.

Does anyone have advice on what he should look into if he chooses to further his education? He's most interested in bioremediation so it seems like a M.S. environmental engineering might be the best to meet that goal, but he's considered a masters in chemistry too. I'm also curious what education is needed to fit the bill for more lucrative laboratory positions.

# ? Sep 6, 2019 18:19

knox_harrington: Feb 18, 2011; Running no point.

If he's a really great fit for the job there's something else wrong. Does he come across like he's going to be a pain in the rear end?

# ? Sep 6, 2019 22:28

Mustached Demon: Nov 12, 2016

My company's looking for a chemist that's chromatography wizard if anyone's interested.

# ? Sep 8, 2019 04:37

RadioPassive: Feb 26, 2012

Where?

# ? Sep 10, 2019 06:30

street doc: Feb 20, 2019

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

Could you go into this a little bit more? Like I understand industry wide that automating or outsourcing is common but a lot of the positions he's applying for are ones that he exactly fits the bill for. Definitely he's applied for some low tier jobs and some that are a bit of a reach as well, but most of them want 3+ years of lab experience, which is what he brings to the table. So its not that they're aren't any reasonable looking laboratory positions being posted, which could be explained by automation/outsourcing if that were the case, but that he's applying to lots of positions that fit his skillset and not hearing anything back. I understand just wanting to train someone from scratch for the low tier positions but that doesn't work for position that require years of lab experience.

Does anyone have advice on what he should look into if he chooses to further his education? He's most interested in bioremediation so it seems like a M.S. environmental engineering might be the best to meet that goal, but he's considered a masters in chemistry too. I'm also curious what education is needed to fit the bill for more lucrative laboratory positions.

For entry level, they want a new college grad with high GPA to train.

For 3+ years, especially if they have a lot of applicants, they will go with someone who�s already used the specific equipment for the specific sample type(protein, cells, small
Molecule, etc). Only way around that is to be internally recommended.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 13:14

JibbaJabberwocky: Aug 14, 2010

street doc posted:

For entry level, they want a new college grad with high GPA to train.

For 3+ years, especially if they have a lot of applicants, they will go with someone who�s already used the specific equipment for the specific sample type(protein, cells, small
Molecule, etc). Only way around that is to be internally recommended.

Okay that makes sense, thanks.

Anyone have ideas about jobs that are lab adjacent but not specifically laboratory jobs someone who can't find a lab job should look into?

# ? Sep 12, 2019 17:55

Sundae: Dec 1, 2005

JibbaJabberwocky posted:

Okay that makes sense, thanks.

Anyone have ideas about jobs that are lab adjacent but not specifically laboratory jobs someone who can't find a lab job should look into?

The problem is that lab-adjacent jobs will usually want lab experience. Examples are lab manager positions, schedulers, quality oversight roles, etc. If you have technical experience, you may be able to get an in-house technician / calibration role for instrumentation stuff. That's a bit too far away from adjacent I think, but it's possible. Most adjacent roles will want someone who already has experience with the main role, though, so not too good of odds there.

# ? Sep 12, 2019 20:02

EPICAC: Mar 23, 2001

Which one of you goons is this?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19305371

quote:

In order to procure the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us (M.I.E.) went on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which is consistent with an arctic diet, for eight days (Binford, 2012; Fumagalli et al., 2015) (Table S1). The Inuit do not only eat meat from maritime and terrestrial animals (Arendt, 2010; Zutter, 2009), and there were three instances during the eight-day diet that M.I.E. ate fruit, vegetables, or carbohydrates (Table S1).

Raw material collection did not begin until day four, and then proceeded regularly for the next five days (Table S1). Fecal samples were formed into knives using ceramic molds, �knife molds� (Figs. S1�S2), or molded by hand, �hand-shaped knives� (Fig. S3). All fecal samples were stored at −20 �C until the experiments began.

We procured pig hide, muscle, and tendons, and these were also stored at −20 �C until two days before the experiments began, at which point we allowed them to begin thawing at 4 �C. Minutes prior to the experiment, both the �knife mold� samples and the �hand-shaped knives� were removed from the laboratory freezer and further sharpened with a metal file (Fig. S4). The knives were then buried for several minutes in −50 �C dry ice to ensure they were sufficiently frozen before any attempt at slicing. The study was approved by the Institutional Biosafety Committee at Kent State University.

We began our cutting experiments with the hide, reasoning that if our knives could not cut hide, then subsequent attempts with muscle and tendons would be futile.

Neither the �knife mold� samples, nor the �hand-shaped knives� could cut through hide (Figs. S5�S6). Despite the hide being cold from refrigeration, instead of slicing through it the knife-edge simply melted upon contact, leaving streaks of fecal matter (Fig. S4).

# ? Sep 13, 2019 02:53

Shrieking Muppet: Jul 16, 2006

Got asked today about getting trained in Mass spec so I could work with the mass spec group to run samples. I wouldn�t be transfers to the mass spec group just running reference standards so that they can handle their work. Decided that since that group is run by a slave driver who treats her team like poo poo I should decline the offer since I know I would be thrown into that group when the next reorg happens if I knew MS.

# ? Sep 20, 2019 19:39

That Works: Jul 22, 2006; Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy

EPICAC posted:

Which one of you goons is this?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X19305371

what the gently caress

# ? Sep 20, 2019 19:54

Cardiac: Aug 28, 2012

Since there seem to be a lot of HPLC people around here, I am wondering whether anyone have good recommendations for a HPLC-MS system.
Chromatographically there are no heavy requirements, since currently we are running this fine on 10-20 year old LC-MS systems, as well as on a new Sciex system.
What we are mostly looking for is supporting software that allows for keeping track of 25-50 compounds in a mix and highly automatized and stable analysis of weak and broad peaks. The system is supposed to run 1000-10000 compounds in mixes.

Also, since there are ELN sellers here, anyone got a recommendation for a good one that is customisable to cover anything from cell expressions to protein crystallization and NMR.
Preferably self-hosted on our network and must be Mac-friendly.

# ? Oct 11, 2019 07:40

Lyon: Apr 17, 2003

Cardiac posted:

Also, since there are ELN sellers here, anyone got a recommendation for a good one that is customisable to cover anything from cell expressions to protein crystallization and NMR.
Preferably self-hosted on our network and must be Mac-friendly.

IDBS seems to be the golden standard for ELN and the other big name I can think of is BIOVIA (they bought Accelrys). I don�t have any first hand experience with either product but all of my customers love IDBS so I�d start there with the understanding that they will probably be on the upper end price wise.

I sell LIMS, so a slightly different product, but as the markets/products converge we are seeing and competing with ELN vendors more often.

# ? Oct 11, 2019 11:16

Johnny Truant: Jul 22, 2008

I've been migrating our old, incredibly lovely FileMaker Pro database/biorepository into FreezerWorks, and let me tell you it's impressive to see the amount of absolutely hosed data my predecessors thought was acceptable.

So many "Y" entries in numeric fields that I kind of just want to.. die.

# ? Oct 11, 2019 12:16

Lyon: Apr 17, 2003

Johnny Truant posted:

I've been migrating our old, incredibly lovely FileMaker Pro database/biorepository into FreezerWorks, and let me tell you it's impressive to see the amount of absolutely hosed data my predecessors thought was acceptable.

So many "Y" entries in numeric fields that I kind of just want to.. die.

Call me when you're ready to replace FreezerWorks

# ? Oct 11, 2019 23:42

Snack Bitch: May 15, 2008; Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!

Cardiac posted:

Since there seem to be a lot of HPLC people around here, I am wondering whether anyone have good recommendations for a HPLC-MS system.
Chromatographically there are no heavy requirements, since currently we are running this fine on 10-20 year old LC-MS systems, as well as on a new Sciex system.
What we are mostly looking for is supporting software that allows for keeping track of 25-50 compounds in a mix and highly automatized and stable analysis of weak and broad peaks. The system is supposed to run 1000-10000 compounds in mixes.

Also, since there are ELN sellers here, anyone got a recommendation for a good one that is customisable to cover anything from cell expressions to protein crystallization and NMR.
Preferably self-hosted on our network and must be Mac-friendly.

My company switched from paper notebooks to Biovia last year. Overall it�s works, very searchable. The biggest problem, and something that might be a deal breaker for crystallization data, is that the data archives are limited to files less than 100 Mb. You can upload as many 100 Mb files as you want though. So stupid.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 01:53

Johnny Truant: Jul 22, 2008

Lyon posted:

Call me when you're ready to replace FreezerWorks .

Probably won't be anytime soon as we're just implementing it now, lol. What LIMS do you sling? Feel free to PM me!

# ? Oct 12, 2019 05:07

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

Snack Bitch posted:

My company switched from paper notebooks to Biovia last year. Overall it�s works, very searchable. The biggest problem, and something that might be a deal breaker for crystallization data, is that the data archives are limited to files less than 100 Mb. You can upload as many 100 Mb files as you want though. So stupid.

Why do you need big files for crystallization data? You don't need to store the image files, do you? Just the reflections.db

# ? Oct 12, 2019 10:13

Cardiac: Aug 28, 2012

Dik Hz posted:

Why do you need big files for crystallization data? You don't need to store the image files, do you? Just the reflections.db

We store all image files since we never know when we need to go back for reprocessing. Currently we have one project from 2014 that is going to the PDB database and which needed reprocessing.
The Eiger detectors that are becoming standard on all big beam lines also create large amounts of data.

I will check out the Biovia, the max upload I don�t see as a problem as we would probably keep actual image files separate.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 10:40

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

Cardiac posted:

We store all image files since we never know when we need to go back for reprocessing. Currently we have one project from 2014 that is going to the PDB database and which needed reprocessing.
The Eiger detectors that are becoming standard on all big beam lines also create large amounts of data.

I will check out the Biovia, the max upload I don�t see as a problem as we would probably keep actual image files separate.

I get the impulse, but aren't your image files already processed to the pixel anyway?

# ? Oct 12, 2019 10:43

Cardiac: Aug 28, 2012

Dik Hz posted:

I get the impulse, but aren't your image files already processed to the pixel anyway?

Might be, I only cheat at crystallography and X-ray.
My coworkers process from image files using different software for isotropic and anisotropic data so we need the image files.
As storage space is cheap and my coworkers have no interest in sorting the data, this is currently the working solution.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 14:50

Snack Bitch: May 15, 2008; Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!

Dik Hz posted:

Why do you need big files for crystallization data? You don't need to store the image files, do you? Just the reflections.db

Honestly, I was assuming they were big, never worked with that kind of data.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 17:33

ascii genitals: Aug 19, 2000

I don't do a lot of lcms but ab sciex ms with an Agilent lc seems like what you are looking for.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 17:38

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

Raw image files add up fast, i do optical imaging with a canon camera on a scope, and it's 300-400 MB per 10 second experiment

# ? Oct 12, 2019 18:47

Cardiac: Aug 28, 2012

Tunicate posted:

Raw image files add up fast, i do optical imaging with a canon camera on a scope, and it's 300-400 MB per 10 second experiment

A normal 4 h session at a beamline generates on average something like 500 Gb data, mostly images. Funny fact, nowadays the sample changer takes longer than the actual data collection. That is of course on a good beamline.

# ? Oct 12, 2019 18:59

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

Cardiac posted:

Might be, I only cheat at crystallography and X-ray.
My coworkers process from image files using different software for isotropic and anisotropic data so we need the image files.
As storage space is cheap and my coworkers have no interest in sorting the data, this is currently the working solution.

I get it, but anyone that actually understands macromolecular crystallography knows that the image files can be reduced down to a list of reflections. Sucks to work with people who view it as voodoo.

# ? Oct 13, 2019 03:04

Shrieking Muppet: Jul 16, 2006

Dik Hz posted:

I get it, but anyone that actually understands macromolecular crystallography knows that the image files can be reduced down to a list of reflections. Sucks to work with people who view it as voodoo.

Its instrumentation, its all either witchcraft, voodoo or black magic.

# ? Oct 13, 2019 03:11

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# ? May 26, 2024 06:07

Dik Hz: Feb 22, 2004; Fun with Science

So my boss, the VP of R&D, proposed trying to make a superhydrophobic coating out of a system composed of a acrylic emulsion in water and a water-soluble amine-based polymer. When I pointed out that water soluble polymers generally don't make hydrophobic coatings, I added the obvious, "unless you react away all hydrophilic groups." Which of course, would be ridiculous in a coating, and especially ridiculous with amine chemistry. He just smirked and leaned back and whispered "Unless...." like I was just finally grasping his brilliant idea and he wasn't just saying the word "superhydrophobic" in front of execs. He didn't get the first part, had no idea why the second part would be true, there's no reason why superhydrophobicity would be a useful property for our application, and it's just dumber the further down you go.

FML

# ? Oct 15, 2019 23:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Still Just a Rat in a Cage - Laboratory Chat!

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