Monthly Archives: July 2014

Tania

July 31, 2014

We lost power again last night during Olga’s acquisition, sorry Olga. I will be resetting and rebooting and equilibrating today. Can’t wait for winter – not having storms has its advantages.

Tania

July 30, 2014

Orbi is well and running Olga’s samples. Joana’s and Anna’s samples are digested.

Tania

July 29, 2014

After a brief power outage which occurred some time on Sunday, Orbi spent two days without the chiller. As of now FT analyzer has not reached the operating temperature.

Olga’s MS-ready samples are first in the Orbi queue.

Anna’s and Joana’s samples are clean and dry and ready for digestion.

MALDI TOF will be running Pallavi’s samples tomorrow.

Tania

July 23, 2014

Andrew’s MS-ready samples are done.  Orbi is warming-up for Eric’s, Nick’s, and Hui’s in-solution digests which should be ready to run in 2 hours. Michael’s and Brian’s gel bands are incubating with trypsin and should be ready for MS analysis tomorrow.

Marlena have just finished analyzing anthocyanins by MALDI-TOF. Chris and I will be acquiring protein standard mass spectra to compare them with the corresponding Orbitrap mass spectra. The results will be shared here so that you could make an informed decision as to which instrument is better suited for your analysis.

Tania

July 21, 2014

I am at the Upward Bound Math and Science research symposium, and the quality of students’ presentations is outstanding! Many of these kids are rising sophomores, i.e. have just finished 9th grade! So next time a postdoc or a Ph.D. candidate tells me “I don’t know how to cut out a gel band” or “I am not comfortable making a salt solution”, I will treat it as an attempt at making me feel freakishly smart.

Tania

July 15, 2014

After working non-stop for 2 weeks, Orbi is going to take a nice long break. Mike, our Thermo engineer will start preventive maintenance work on Wednesday, July 16th which should be finished by Friday. I am taking a vacation day on Friday, July 18th; and on Monday, July 21st James and I will be attending the Upward Bound Math & Science Program’s Summer STEM Academy Research Symposium and judging the students presentations.

MALDI-TOF is available through Thursday, so if you have a sample or three, please bring them in! On Tuesday, the 22nd we should be back to normal with Orbi all clean and shiny!

 

Tania

July 10, 2014

Here’s the plan: Valerie’s samples start tonight and run over the weekend, provided we don’t lose power to the AC and/or the instruments. I will process Joana’s and Mark’s data now (drumroll or screaming violins, whichever you prefer). Nick’s samples by MALDI-TOF are next on my board, I will try my best to run them today.

Tania

July 8, 2014

Orbi is running around the clock! You guys work so hard, samples arrive every day! Don’t you need a little break?

Tania

July 3, 2014

Orbi has finished running Yuanjun’s samples! What’s next? Casey’s TMT samples are running since this morning.  We lost power for a moment, but no equipment went down except for the AC system. It’s getting warm in the lab, and we hope that OPP will reset our AC soon. If the temperature is kept under control, I will start running Valerie’s, Joana’s, and Mark’s samples tomorrow. Next in the queue is Nicole followed by Michael.

MALDI is taking a holiday break – no samples to run.

On Monday, July 7th at 9 AM I will be showing a student how to cut gel bands and clean them up for in-gel digestion. Please e-mail me if you are interested in joining our micro-workshop. We can easily accommodate 2-3 more learners!

Have a nice 4th of July weekend!

ETA: It is 28C in the lab, one more degree C and LC system will quit. It doesn’t understand hot. It patiently waits until it can reach the set temperature. Last Summer, it waited 2 weeks for its favorite temperature. Just sayin’.