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Asked by 732mutg29 to Emma, Monica, Sebastian, Sinead, Thomas on 8 Nov 2016.
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Sebastian Gornik answered on 8 Nov 2016:
HI,
Yes indeed, we do most of our work in a very clean and sometimes even sterile environment. In some cases we do this to protect ourselves, but mostly this is done to protect the experiment and the specimen so that no contamination is introduced. For example, a skin flake (tiny tiny tiny piece of skin) or a hair can already ruin some laboratory work. So, yes we work in a very clean environment.
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Emma Roycroft answered on 8 Nov 2016:
Hi again 732mutg29, yes it is really important that there is no contamination present. The last thing we want to do is tell someone they have TB when it was actually the result of lab cross contamination. It is even more important when you are looking at DNA not to have contamination with any other organisms. DNA is essentially the same in all living things, just present in different patterns or sequences. Contamination can be a huge problem when analysing DNA, so everything has to be regularly sterilised and different cabinets are used for different processes.
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Sinead Loughran answered on 8 Nov 2016:
Hi,
In cancer research, we often grow cancer cells in the lab in special sterile dishes so that they don’t get infected with bugs, the area has to be really clean and we use alcohol spray to clean the area before we begin our experiments. The air has to be really clean too and we need to do this work in a special hood with filtered air. Similar to what Sebastian said, we wear lab gloves to protect ourselves from the chemicals and cells we work with but also to protect the cancer cells from the bugs we carry on our hands and skin. -
Thomas McLoughlin answered on 8 Nov 2016:
I work out of an office. It is clean but not like a laboratory where it can to be near sterile-see comments below!
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