Anthony is teaching lab this afternoon and asked me to start a batch of e.coli… all by myself. At first I was thinking, “Sure, no big deal. I’ve done this several times with you.” Then I got to the lab and got all nervous. Silly me. 🙂

Here is the procedure I followed:

  1. put on gloves – very important not to contaminate myself.
  2. get supplies:
    • 10mL tube and pipette
    • inoculating loop, Green 10 x 1µL
    • autoclaved test tube
    • LB broth
    • agar plate with e.coli – LB Day 2 batch
  3. Remove cover from LB broth and pipette 10mL of broth into test tube.
  4. Re-cover test tube and broth.
  5. Dispose of pipette tube in bio-hazard bin.
  6. Remove parafilm from agar plate.
  7. Using inoculating loop, get a single colony of e.coli on loop.
  8. Put loop in test tube and swirl for a few seconds.
  9. Dispose of loop in bio-hazard bin.
  10. Recover test tube.
  11. Place test tube in incubator at 37 C.
  12. Re-cover agar plate and seal with new parafilm.
  13. Place agar plate and LB broth back in refrigerator.

Everything went smoothly. I didn’t spill or contaminate anything (this is so silly, I feel like the first time I got to ride my bike without my parents watching). We should have some new e.coli tomorrow to use for this week’s experiments.

See you all then!