Molecular Ecology and Conservation Lab @UMass General Lab Procedures

[smbanerjee]

MOLECULAR ECOLOGY & CONSERVATION LAB GENERAL PROCEDURES Lab philosophy Our goal is to have a space where many different students and collaborators can work on a variety of interesting projects in the molecular lab. Being involved in a lab with many projects going on is a lot of fun because each lab member gets exposure to different techniques and ideas, but it’s important to stay organized and be considerate of shared lab space. We want to have lab space that facilitates efficient, collaborative, and fun (!) lab work. The following are a few ways in which we can keep our work environment functioning at full capacity and most importantly, safe! Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) • Always wear lab coat and gloves while working in the molecular lab • Always remove lab coat and gloves when leaving the molecular lab or entering the bioinformatics lab or office space • Keep materials and PPE from different sections separate (i.e. gloves and lab coat used for RNA extraction should not be used for a PCR prep) • Please do not eat, drink, or use phones/tablets in the molecular lab. You can take a break from lab work in the office, bioinformatics lab, or outside the lab. • Please do not touch lab coats, door handles, and computers with gloves on • Be careful to avoid cross contamination (i.e. don’t use the supplies/space for different protocols), better safe than sorry Before you start working • Before you start working on anything, always decontaminate bench space by:

1. Spray down with 10% bleach solution (in bottles on benchtop), and wipe up
2. Spray with 70% cleaning ethanol (in bottles on benchtop), wipe and let air dry
3. Put down bench paper
4. After you are done,
5. If you leave your work unattended, please label with name and date
6. Please do not leave bench paper and work out for more than one night After you finish working • Always label your work (sample tubes, plates, aliquots, etc.) with your initials and date • Please clean up after yourself when you are finished. Toss your bench paper and used pipette tips then spray with bleach and wipe up, then spray with cleaning ethanol and let air dry • Use a paper towel sprayed with bleach solution to wipe down pipettes and any other tools you used to decontaminate them. • Make sure your samples/plates/reagents are stored properly Waste disposal • Nothing but bleach and water should go down the drain • Dispose of waste in the appropriately labelled brown waste bottles located in grey tubs near the door , if you’re not sure, please don’t hesitate to ask • Make sure your waste is compatible with the waste already in the bottle, if you’re not sure check the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) in the safety binder in the office or online at ehs.umass.edu, and as always feel free to ask • If a waste bottle is full let Shreya know • Glass waste goes in the glass box • Needles, razor blades, and other sharps go in the sharps tubs, not the regular trash • Paper, intact glass bottles, plastic bottles, clean aluminum foil, and empty tip boxes can go in the recycling • Any animal tissues need to be placed in a red biobag and then put in the freezer • Regular trash (i.e. kimwipes, tips, plastic wrap) needs to go in trash bins, not recycling, the sharps tub or the glass box Washing equipment • Properly dispose of contents, if you’re unsure where contents go consult SDS or ask someone • Remove lab tape label • Rinse with water • Dunk in 10% bleach solution three times • Rinse with water twice • Allow to dry on bench paper • Please put away when dry Group reagents and supplies • If you leave a communal reagent solution bottle (TE, gel mix, etc.) less than one fourth full, please make more or write on white board • If you use up a reagent bottle (ethanol, etc.) remove the barcode sticker from the bottle and place it on the chemical inventory disposal log taped up by the door, and recycle the empty bottle • Let Shreya know if we are running low on reagents or supplies by writing on the white board

[smbanerjee]

Thought issue was just to make another project within repository oops