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AfricanBootyShine posted:More equipment questions: Maybe I am working with a different budget than you are, but 20% the cost of a microcentrifuge is a rounding error compared anything else related to science, assuming it is not coming directly out of your paycheck. Generally, I think the quality of all equipment has gone down, as measured by how many times I need to go in to unload new but failing freezers at midnight in the last few years vs 15 years ago, but the big supply aggregator brands tend to be bottom tier. If looking at new prices you could potentially look for any sort of auction or used equipment to save money.
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May 21, 2022 17:47
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You are receiving this broadcast as a dream...We are transmitting from the year one nine... nine nine ...You are receiving this broadcast in order t
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Hey lab thread! Crossposting from the resume thread since this is pretty niche, but here goes:Johnny Truant posted:Hey thread, long time jobber Any and all feedback/tips is much appreciated. If there are any better ways to show that I'm interested GMP I think that's probably what my resume is lacking the most - that's the main reason why I included the "studying for pGMP cert", since I really have no actual production experience. All my lab/benchwork has been part of a larger and already specified research project, like my publications, so I'm trying to get feedback on how to better present myself for making the academia->industry pivot. Thanks!
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May 23, 2022 18:58
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first time poster. Hoping to get some advice on my resume!
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I'll be starting my own (microbiology) lab soon and really want to move away from the physical lab notebooks that I've been keeping for ages. Dusting off old folders and trying to find past procedures/results from my own chickenscratch notes, let alone someone else's, is such a pain. Any experience/recommendations with that? I don't need anything fancy, ideally I'd like a situation where everyone's lab notebook is easily accessible online to me and other lab members (although that might stress out people?), and that keeps track of changes so that nobody can just go back and change their results. The simples solution would probably be google docs, but I think that's very easily editable. I've heard of people using Benchling, no idea how good it is. Any input appreciated, even just to tell me it's a horrible idea.
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May 23, 2022 19:51
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married but discreet posted:I'll be starting my own (microbiology) lab soon and really want to move away from the physical lab notebooks that I've been keeping for ages. Dusting off old folders and trying to find past procedures/results from my own chickenscratch notes, let alone someone else's, is such a pain. Any experience/recommendations with that? There is a massive amount of available software out there. Most are only cloud, which might not be an issue for you. At the core most of them is just a bunch of records accessible on a web page. But if you are academic, the pricing is cheaper or sometimes free for a limited amount of users. We have an old ELN that needs replacing and are looking for a more modern version. But cloud solutions go away, so bye bye Benchling (also since I dislike benchlings aggressive marketing). Some alternatives I looked into were Labcollector and Labfolder which seemed simple to get going (also has on premise solutions). Can’t say that larger actors like Biovia is of interest since they have very little interest in new smaller customers.
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May 23, 2022 20:17
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One thing I’ve seen that I like is using google drive / gsuite as an ELN. You create a google form to generate serialized folders for grouping data/docs/slides. Collaborative comments are seamless, you can use specialized tools like R, or your favorite codes, google sheets are queryable, and the hyperlinks are stable. You can do standardization with forms and templates. Overall I like it a lot better than more specialized ELN solutions that kinda straight-jacket how to keep your data.
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May 24, 2022 20:32
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married but discreet posted:I'll be starting my own (microbiology) lab soon and really want to move away from the physical lab notebooks that I've been keeping for ages. Dusting off old folders and trying to find past procedures/results from my own chickenscratch notes, let alone someone else's, is such a pain. Any experience/recommendations with that? If you will work with and need to keep track of a bunch of plasmid/primer/oligonucleotide data then benchling has a good sequence handling interface.
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May 24, 2022 22:39
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Dobbs_Head posted:One thing I’ve seen that I like is using google drive / gsuite as an ELN. You create a google form to generate serialized folders for grouping data/docs/slides. Collaborative comments are seamless, you can use specialized tools like R, or your favorite codes, google sheets are queryable, and the hyperlinks are stable. You can do standardization with forms and templates. The issue with this approach is that it assumes your common lab grunt is somewhat computer literate, which by experience I can say is not likely the case. Ease of use and intuitive setup is imo essential. As for other ELN solutions, they do like keeping their data hidden behind a layer so you cannot access the data directly. Our current ELN is a IP-locked VM that essentially is a nginx server with Ubuntu on top of a postgresql database that couldn't be moved without contacting the company. (Too bad they didn't put in a root password though, which solved the above issue since the copy protection was literally deleting some files if ip was changed and all code was in clear-text) I kinda like Labcollector, since you can install it on a Linux VM and use your own MySQL/MariaDB. An interesting but different solution is Amphorah, where you write everything in Word and print/email it to the ELN. Is apparently basically a Docker deployment where all files are saved on the server folders. Zudgemud posted:If you will work with and need to keep track of a bunch of plasmid/primer/oligonucleotide data then benchling has a good sequence handling interface. You use Benchling? What is your impression? I guess there is an academic license? I have been in communication with Benchling employees, but the cloud only is something I dislike.
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May 25, 2022 07:34
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Cardiac posted:You use Benchling? What is your impression? I only use benchling for sequence handling so far, which it does very well for my work. Managing data access for projects is also quite easy. I switched over because my old sequence handling software is an old buggy POS (Serial Cloner). Our facility might move over to benchling for other things too though, but nothing is decided and I have not really used the other features not directly involved in sequence handling.
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May 26, 2022 13:57
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Anyone got a rough estimate what Labware and Benchling costs per user and month for a commercial user? I can go through the official pages, but I rather not having to deal with a sales representative for simple information like this. Similar ELNs go for ~45-60 EUR/user/month and I am simply wondering whether they are on the same pricing level.
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Jun 3, 2022 13:59
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At least for labware make sure to budget for setting it up properly, unless your use case is extremely simple.
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Jun 3, 2022 14:36
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Spikes32 posted:At least for labware make sure to budget for setting it up properly, unless your use case is extremely simple. I have been in contact with Labware sales, but I have stayed away from them since we are really not a large scale operation or have any need for any GxP whatever, and I get the feeling their main business is larger scale. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get a demo in order to get a quote. Same for benchling. I guess in any case the yearly cost will be on the order of 10 kUSD/EUR and above. On a side note, I can say that Biovia is not that interested in new customers based on my contacts with them.
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Jun 3, 2022 17:59
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If you don't need gmp or large scale, labware becomes less valuable to you.
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Jun 3, 2022 19:29
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I admined labware for a long time, and it is very specific in how things get set up. Lab notebooks in particular are easy to set up for simple things but hard as soon as any complexity is introduced.
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Jun 3, 2022 19:30
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IDBS is the gold standard of ELN from my experience. I've never worked with it personally as I am not a scientist and am, in fact, a dirty software salesman (formerly LabVantage, now at an MES startup). The issue with any of the big LIMS/ELN players (Biovia, IDBS, LabWare, LabVantage, STARLIMS, Thermo) is that their sales reps aren't really incentivized to work with smaller customers. It takes just as much work, if not more work, to sell a small system to a start up or mom and pop lab than it does to sell to a global pharma company. I'd at least checkout IDBS but I have no idea on their pricing. From a LIMS pricing perspective LabVantage/LabWare are going to charge about $10k/concurrent user license ($5k for a named license) and then your minimum implementation cost is probably $100k but often much higher. That's for a traditional on-site/on-premise full LIMS roll out. If you're just looking to implement a simple ELN you might be able to get a reasonable price from the big players but it might be hard to get their attention.
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Jun 5, 2022 19:14
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Cardiac posted:Anyone got a rough estimate what Labware and Benchling costs per user and month for a commercial user? Don’t do LabWare, not even once. It takes a ton of work to configure and doesn’t work well out of the box. The codebase is a pile of smalltalk trash. Install for a 5ish user system was on the order $70k USD, “maintenance” (where they did nothing but provide patches) was around 10 - 20k. Their basic unit of project work is like $70-100 k. Install guys just applied their lovely template that bloated the db with stuff we didn’t need. Source: I deployed and maintained a LabWare system for my last job.
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Jun 7, 2022 12:16
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Lyon posted:IDBS is the gold standard of ELN from my experience. I've never worked with it personally as I am not a scientist and am, in fact, a dirty software salesman (formerly LabVantage, now at an MES startup). The issue with any of the big LIMS/ELN players (Biovia, IDBS, LabWare, LabVantage, STARLIMS, Thermo) is that their sales reps aren't really incentivized to work with smaller customers. It takes just as much work, if not more work, to sell a small system to a start up or mom and pop lab than it does to sell to a global pharma company. That have been my experience of Biovia as well, they really weren't that interested of us. Others have been much more proactive. I'll check out IDBS, since I have apparently missed them. It is a jungle out there among all the ELNs. Dobbs_Head posted:Don’t do LabWare, not even once. I read this post from you before and this is why I have stayed away from Labware sofar. Seems like a good plan to follow.
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Jun 7, 2022 15:18
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Cardiac posted:That have been my experience of Biovia as well, they really weren't that interested of us. What's your budget generally speaking? I'll see if I can do some quick research for you on pricing.
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Jun 8, 2022 03:09
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Lyon posted:What's your budget generally speaking? I'll see if I can do some quick research for you on pricing. Only if there is minimal effort on your part. Our procurement procedure is interesting to say the least and 75% of all our equipment is bought second hand on auctions. That said, one can get a lot of stuff done this way. Economy wise we run a tight ship due to the company being grown organically. So the budget I am looking at, is around 10-30 kUSD/annually for 20 users for an ELN. The number is based on quotes I have received from different vendors.
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Jun 8, 2022 05:42
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Cardiac posted:Our procurement procedure is interesting to say the least. Horror movie levels of quote right there.
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Jun 9, 2022 19:11
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SerthVarnee posted:Horror movie levels of quote right there. At one point I was considering opening a museum showing off old Sorvall centrifuges since we had 5 different versions from a time frame spanning over 40 years. Interestingly, rotors have not changed in this time frame, so a SS-34 looks the same.
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Jun 9, 2022 20:45
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I have a J-kem unit that has “manufactured in East Germany” on it. Still works great.
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Jun 10, 2022 01:52
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We have an Ion Torrent NGS. The nucleotide cartridges come with these mini CO2 scrubbers that have to be removed and put in hazardous waste when you're done with them. They're small red cylinders about the size of cigarettes. I would like to know what exactly is in these drat things for the purposes of waste disposal, but I can't seem to find anything about it. The product manual just says "Remove . . . then dispose of the scrubber according to applicable hazardous waste regulations." I think they're just activated carbon, but I'm not confident of that. If they are, and the only thing they scrub is atmospheric CO2, do they really need to be disposed of as hazardous waste? Is the reasoning more that the carbon can suck up and concentrate hazardous chemicals than the carbon itself being a hazard? Mak0rz fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jul 21, 2022 |
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Jul 21, 2022 22:34
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Hey nerds! I’m thinking about pushing the company I’m at to get a Raman microscope. We have a solid use case. I’ve used a Renishaw in grad school that I thought was… ok? I also worked to build a Raman setup on an optics bench for super niche work. Anyway, are there any opinions in the thread about Raman microscopes?
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Jul 22, 2022 00:20
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Dobbs_Head posted:Hey nerds! I use a Renishaw Raman microscope for solid surfaces. Software has a bit of a learning curve but does the job fine. Typical "oh right we need software to run it" you see with a lot of instruments. You can set up several excitation wavelengths and easily swap between them. Overall, it's pretty turn key and would recommend it.
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Jul 22, 2022 00:54
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Dobbs_Head posted:Hey nerds! What will you be using the scope for? That’s going to pretty much determine what feature set will work best. I’m biased since I used to work for Renishaw but I liked their implementation of microscope features better than Horiba or WiTec. The system is a mostly open design so it’s easy to shove more components in. I don’t remember a ton of details but feel free to PM me and I can at least direct you to the right person.
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Jul 22, 2022 16:25
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majestic12 posted:What will you be using the scope for? That’s going to pretty much determine what feature set will work best. I am going to be doing spectro-electrochemistry in-situ in caustic on metal electrodes. I’m not really interested in organics, but there are polymer binders in some portions of our system that I’m sure we’d study by Raman if we had the tool. That means I’m at slower oscillators and need optics optimized for low wavenumbers. Think things like Mn-O bond frequencies. I have some interest in lower metalloid oxides like As, Sb, Pb, and such too. Edit: some of the electrodes have micron-scale texture, and I think the redox processes I am studying produce microstructure, which is why I want a microscope. Dobbs_Head fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Jul 23, 2022 |
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Jul 22, 2022 23:55
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Does anybody know of a small glass insert i can stick in a 1.5 ml eppendorf tube? I've tried searching and can't find anything, but it seems like this has to be something somebody has wanted before... And I'm tired of cutting them myself. 
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Aug 2, 2022 19:03
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I know they make tapered lc vial inserts, could one of them work?
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Aug 2, 2022 21:09
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I don't think so. The mini slides have deparaffinized FFPE tissue sections on them. I need them to be flat for imaging and downstream stuff. The ones i posted work well, i just don't like making them myself.
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Aug 2, 2022 22:56
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crabrock posted:I don't think so. The mini slides have deparaffinized FFPE tissue sections on them. I need them to be flat for imaging and downstream stuff. How are you making them? Are you using tungsten carbide tip scribe to score it? Craft or hardware stores typically have them. We use them to fracture silicon wafers with all sorts of stuff deposited on top. Silicon's way easy to fracture (thinner than slides too) but it can't be that much different.
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Aug 2, 2022 23:24
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Mustached Demon posted:How are you making them? Are you using tungsten carbide tip scribe to score it? Craft or hardware stores typically have them. I’ve fractured both glass slides and wafers and they are totally, completely different. An Si wafer you just need to vaguely suggest a break for it to perfectly cleave along a crystal face. Glass is amorphous, if you don’t score it hard it just cracks in random directions. To do what OP wants, I’d suggest a cutting wheel and cut them in bulk.
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Aug 2, 2022 23:28
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I'm using a diamond tip glass scorer and cutting them from regular glass slides (i want the positive charge properties). I can get 4-5 ok mini slides per slide. It's just a pain in the rear end and I'd like a lot more and not have to wash the ones I've already made. I'd probably go through hundreds (I'm in R&D and i have a lot of failures). Maybe my company will just order me some custom ones but wanted to make sure nobody already made them.
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Aug 3, 2022 00:14
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Yah go with custom or some cutting wheel.
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Aug 3, 2022 02:19
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Custom glass is very cheap compared to R&D labor.
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Aug 3, 2022 10:44
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We’re doing an ELN evaluation at my workplace right now, including demos from LabVantage, Biovia, IDBS, LabArchives, etc. My impression right now is that IDBS seems to be focused more as a pure record keeping/notebook replacement, while LIMS/ELN integration seems to be the major focus of LabVantage and LabArchives. But practical details are pretty scant in the demos we’re getting. It sounds like some folks here have a ton of experience with these products, anyone have strong opinions to share? Our use case is a hybrid of lab and field work, and both experimental science and routine analysis so we need both notebook customization and templates for routine work.
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Aug 10, 2022 13:46
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Currently enjoying the 1 year of lab experience required for entry level lab job hellride. How long until I resort to a staffing agency contract job?
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Aug 23, 2022 19:56
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Matryoshka SexDoll posted:Currently enjoying the 1 year of lab experience required for entry level lab job hellride. How long until I resort to a staffing agency contract job? Like 8 years ago. 
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Aug 23, 2022 20:15
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Matryoshka SexDoll posted:Currently enjoying the 1 year of lab experience required for entry level lab job hellride. How long until I resort to a staffing agency contract job? Unless you know someone its the only way in
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Aug 23, 2022 21:37
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I made the jump from academia to industry recently and jfc. This is so much better. Like infinitely better. 
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Aug 24, 2022 12:54
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Welcome to the 'get paid' club 
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Aug 24, 2022 13:53
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