Life Science Tools of the Trade

I attended yet another biotech vendor show today. Some of the major vendors were there but the majority of booths were smaller specialized companies.  Registration was mandatory! I gave my real name and email and I hope that doesn’t come back to haunt me. Each visitor was presented with a card to be stamped by each booth you visited. A certain number of stamps earned you a “petit cadeau”.  The petit cadeau could be a laser pointer, calculator, cd cleaning set, first aid kit, thermometer and more!  Between looking at the prizes and from what I remember from high school French class, I am pretty sure ”petit cadeau” translates to “piece of crap”.  Hey, I’m not whining there was plenty of food and I talked to the people I wanted to see and  avoided the others and  I picked up a couple catalogs. Damn! I never did get my card stamped.

Everyday I come home, I find more and more magazines in my mailbox. The latest magazine to show up at my doorstep is Bio-IT World. I’m not sure how I started getting the magazine but I now have a free subscription.

Most of the content doesn’t relate to basic research. The latest issue talks about software available for Medicinal Chemistry, eClinical submissions for the FDA and on-line databases and Web 2.0 technologies.  The articles on the different web sites got me thinking.

We know the number of science blogs on the net keeps growing and growing. We already also know that science social networking sites foster the exchange of ideas and are resources for technical questions and answers. That’s what SAB is - Scientists helping and meeting other scientists.

This is what I’m wondering… will these sites eventually result in the sharing of unpublished data? Will the time come when scientists feel comfortable enough to put their unpublished data on the web for everyone to see?

Would you put your data out there?

I received the following spam and I KNOW I never gave my email adress to this “scientific company”. I’ve deleted the company name and his name but here’s the email. I get enough spam without some sleaze bag science supplier selling my name for a penny to even sleazier online salesmen. I guess that’s what I get for not winning that damn iPOD!

Dear Hal Bogerd,

For a limited time only we are offering new customers 4 FREE sequencing reactions.  To place your order simply fill out the sample submission form on our website and reference Quote #1050.  

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.

We look forward to fulfilling your sequencing needs.   

Thanks,

 Steve Spambot

Skanky Scientific R US

This one, I think, takes the cake.  He showed up 9:15 Monday morning asking if we wanted our pipettes calibrated.  The answer was no thanks.  For what we do, if we’re off by a microliter or two, it doesn’t matter.  That, of course, didn’t discourage him.

He proceeded to tell me they do their calibrating in a controlled environment.   They control the humidity, temperature, blah, blah, blah… I’m figuring that means shipping off the pipettes somewhere where there is this controlled room.  That would have made sense to me.  Not the case.  He tells me they find and use an empty room near the lab.  What?
Needless to say, I didn’t change my mind, we’re still not having our pipettes calibrated.

What was most amusing about the whole situation?  Tuesday morning he shows back up.  He’s calibrating another labs pipettes and is having a hard time finding an empty room.  Would it be alright if he used our *spare lab?*  The room he’s referring to has some of our equipment in it.  The UV light box, the spec, the -80, all the radiation stuff… equipment we use on a daily basis.  I tell him we’re in and out of the room all day - not a controlled environment.  His response -  it’s okay.  We can go in and out and it won’t disturb him.

I don’t know where he ended up calibrating those pipettes.  It wasn’t in our lab and if I had to guess, it wasn’t really in a controlled environment.

At a recent vendor show I was given (didn’t ask for it) a troubleshooting guide to electrophoresis. From this “handy” poster I learned the explanation for wavy bands in a agarose gel.

Gel cooled too quickly!

Credibility is shot. Useless advice.

After a two week loan of a Nanodrop (compact UV spec) I have two comments.

1-I was impressed with the accuracy and ease of use.

2-It is too expensive. We arranged for a loaner after hearing good things and that it ran about $6500.  Unfortunately, the list price is now $7900 and that doesn’t include a required PC.

If I was setting up a new lab I’d consider buying one. To junk a functioning spec for $7900. No sale.