Dropped e.coli (BL21) culture on clothes - (Oct/13/2011 )

Hi there,

Well as the title states, I dropped my pellet that was resuspended in my buffers onto my pants (yes I was wearing a lab coat) but I was sitting down and my lab coat didn't cover the part it fell on...anyway I sprayed ethanol, went home changed clothes and put clothes in washing machine sep to wash (inc dettol)...anyway just wondering is it a big a deal as I'm making it out in my head?...it was embarressing yeah, but its not pathogenic right?

All is well

What you did was fine. That strain of E.coli lacks the pathogenicity genes required for enteric infection so you are right, not pathogenic, you will be ok!

Kamran on Thu Oct 13 07:34:49 2011 said:

leelee on Thu Oct 13 07:37:05 2011 said:

I agree what you guys says about that fact its not pathogenic (hell, what school would allow students to work woth pathogens anyway?? its not even legal) , but I do wonder, wouldnt the ethanol "bleach" his pants?

So no need to worry biology_06er ! All is fine!

Keep in mind that E.coli in general is not a pathogen.. However one "famous" strain is the O157:H7 (just an example) and this one is a bad guy.
But as you should have known: they wont let you "play" with pathogens.
Maybe you dont realise this, but labs need certain "credits" (not sure how to say this in english, but there are certain "levels" and for every level you want to raise, you need to get "credits") to work with pathogenic organisms.
There are several levels and they will never let students enter a lab that has a higher level because its too dangerous.
(check: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level)
See what I mean?


PS: you did ok , its good to have that reflex to use the ethanol, but did you wonder the following thing: that labcoat you wear.. do you think it has micro-organism on it? Do you spray that labcoat with ethanol each day?

-pito-