BIT 295 Biotechnology & Sustainability: Clarification about lab notebooks

Hi BIT 295 Students!

I just wanted to say you all did a great job today in lab! Its a short lab so its nice to see everyone get through the protocol.

I know, for some of you, the hands on stuff is new and you may sometimes feel out of your depth, but thats OK. That’s how we learn! Today was the first time I’ve use a Turbidimeter (though I have taken optical readings of bacterial cultures using other instrumentation)! These sorts of techniques have to be done more than once for you to become proficient. Do them enough you will have “the hands” for the laboratory, as we say. In German we would call it “handhaben”, which means to wield. Fun fact: I know a lot of German lab slang because my Ph.D. advisor was a fluent german speaker and did some of his postdoctoral work in Vienna!  

Update about Lab Notebook entries as there were a few questions in lab today related to that. Lab notebook entries for this course are not graded per se, but for your own enrichment we would like for you to complete them. Especially if you envision your career leading you into a laboratory setting! The best way to do these is to use this doc (one notebook entry per group) to answer any critical thinking/reflection questions found your protocols document. As well as, include any experimental data that you collect and any notes that you take while in the lab. 

Though templates might vary, remember the important things to include in a lab notebook are: Date, Purpose of the experiment (usually just 1-2 sentences), any Data that you collect, any Deviations from the protocol, and Notes/Comments about the experiment (Example: “Lysis of the CHO cells seemed to be a failure based on X, Y, and Z. Next time try a lysis buffer which contains a stronger detergent and increase incubation period to 5 mins.?”). 

I hope this is informative, and, if not, you can ignore it completely! 

Cheers, 
Dr. Huggins