Tuck's First Trickle Field Trip
Was a whirlwind tour of any labs with stuff in them at a biotech. They have a chemistry lab, screening lab, sequencing lab, genomics lab. Plus one lab full of new WAT equipment for some special project run by a couple of chemists. No wonder that stock is hot. Rick will be pleased to note I spotted some NBSC shakers. Though also some from Amarex.
Hamilton vent hoods everywhere. Some Nalge plastic here and there. Rotovaps by Buchi (who are they?). Lotsa Gilson fraction collectors and the like. Beckman autosampler/solvent modules. A few Tecan MiniPreps, but they seem to be gathering dust.
Plate handling stuff by Packard and Tomtec (Quaddras), with assist from Hamilton prep in some cases. Various PCR machines. ABI mass spectrometers. In the sequencing lab, it was pretty much a bunch of ABI sequencers and a few workstations.
There was a new Biacore Reaction Analyzer, but the one person who knew how to operate it was not in. An impending major purchase is something called an "Alpha Screener." By Wallac or ABI (which happen to be the same critter, I believe), I was told, though my informant's memory seemed a little vague about this beast. Darned if I can find reference to it on the Web yet, but I haven't tried very hard.
The Packard autostacker is expensive and delivers consistent data. Works great when it works, which is most of the time. For the money, tech support could perhaps be better. For researchers doing normal stuff, they have prewritten protocols in Visual Basic. If those don't cover what you're doing, some poor biologist/technician has to learn V-Basic to write protocols. And you can't quite walk away from it. Apparently all of these machines, even the fancy ones that automate more of the preparatory steps, tend to jam from time to time. Say the hapless operator sets up a run that should take a couple of hours before lunch, flicks the switch, and takes off. And the thing jams five minutes later. It would be nice if the machine paged someone. All the machines do now is flash warning lights when they get stuck. Not much help when their operators are enjoying lunch al fresco at the company picnic tables. Imagine the dressing down from the boss that ensues because the run is behind schedule. Manufacturers bold enough to admit (at least to themselves) their fancy plate handling machines jam just like all their competitors', could easily add a wireless emergency alert feature. This would save their customers a lot of needless down time, and make a lot of friends amongst biotechnicians who may remember them when they get promoted to the point at which they make purchasing decisions of large magnitude.
Cheers, Tuck |
