Hi All-
Today was my first real day doing chem stuff. I've never really done much work in microliters before (for my non-science buddies, 1 mL = 1,000 microliters and we were working on scales ranging from 0.05-5.0 microliters). It took me all day to make the mixed reagent and a series of 7 standards (which was waaay too long). I finally got to do my first standard run before dinner, but the curve was no good. Dan (my supervisor) checked it and said, "it's not the worst I've seen, but it's not great." I was pretty defeated. I had meticulously worked all day to get my first standard curve and I only got an "okay." After dinner I returned to give it another go--making sure everything was mixed and there were no random miniscule droplets anywhere--while the principal investigators (PIs) sat and waited for me to finish. Once the reagents were added, the whole reaction requires at least a half hour to complete the reaction. The curve was much better, with only 4 rouge points. Once these were removed, it wasn't too shabby with an r-sq of 0.995 ... it only took me 12 hours to get it.
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Good work! It'll get easier; you're just out of practice. So are there windows in the lab? (I guess 12 hrs in the lab is still 12 hrs in the lab: the non-passage of daylight hours just fits the experience!)
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better...You lost me at the first mention series. lol! But I know you'll do great, just your first time out there again in the field since forever! hang in there!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys. It is always just so discouraging to spend so much time on something that should be fairly simple and have it not turn out at all!
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