Monday, August 31, 2009

Latest addition to the lab ...

... to be viewed while singing Stevie Wonder's Isn't She Lovely.

Isn't she lovely.
Isn't she wonderful.
Isn't she precious.


The newest addition to the lab*. A Roche LightCycler 480 Real Time PCR system (PDF, 6 pages). We're currently waiting for the electricians to install a new line (and IT to get her computer connected to our intranet) so we can fire this beauty up, but once we do ... bye bye BioRad iCycler iQ RT-PCR system. Ok, we're not getting rid of it, but we are going to use it much less frequently.

Eventually, my hope is to get a robotic liquid-handling system to do DNA preps and setup RT-PCR reactions to feed the 480. When I get those items procured, then I can buy the 384 well plate heat block** and upgrade the 480 to quadruple our output for a single run.


*The picture isn't of our machine. I lifted this picture off the web. But we do have one which looks just like it, and it's beautiful.

**The 96 and 384 well blocks are interchangeable.

5 comments:

soil mama said...

how exciting! you'll have to write a review of it once you've used it a bit.

do you mostly stick with Sybr Green, or do you do TaqMan too?

Tom said...

Currently we're all Sybr Green.

Genomic Repairman said...

Sweet machine. In the background is George Harrison's "Got My Mind Set On You" playing?

tideliar said...

ugh...every now & then I miss the lab... this is doing it to me... so purttty...so purtty...canna play with eet? caana? pleeeeeeeeeeeeeese?

microbiologist xx said...

My inner nerd is jealous...so very jealous.