Do I need Gradient Thermal Cycler? - (Feb/27/2008 )

Thanks, for all the replies folks! The non-gradient cycler from Eppendorf will be about $3700, and I am going to share half the cost with a colleague, so I think it is worth it. What other major equipment would you suggest is needed for this type of work? My only experience with molecular techniques is doing Qiagen Maxipreps, and for that I am getting a shaker bath. Another lab will let us use their Sorvall centrifuge. I think I'm fairly set otherwise. I will have a biosafety cabinet, dual waterbath, mini-centrifuge (Eppendorf 5418), chromatography refrigerator, enzyme freezer, incubator for tissue culture. We will borrow ultralow temp freezer (-80) for freezing tissue extracts, etc. Am I missing something major? I should also add that we will have an electroporator for doing transfection. Oh, and we will borrow spectrophotometer/nanodrop when needed.

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Power pack, electrophoresis gel tanks, heating block, multichannel pipette (useful for colony PCR work in plasmid construction.)

If you are buying new connical flasks, try to get bevelled flask for the bacteria culturing work. The extra oxygen they provide make the cells happier- higher plasmid yeilds.

Those cooler trays that key things forzen outside of the freezer. Very useful for keeping your enzyme in when you are using them.

Do you have a plasmid management programme? Something like plasmid manager or Vector NTI. It is very important to keep things in order and tidy.

Hmm... and since your are buying things... how about a handheld lable printer? Print small lables to stick on microcentrifuge tubes. Never need to look at small hard to read handwritting again.

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I'll second the label maker. We use Brother Pro-XL label makers (computer driven). The TZ-241 tape can be autoclaved or frozen at -80 and keeps on sticking. The program can automatically print initials and dates, and can do bar codes. I print an extra label and paste it into my lab notebook. I couldn't work without it.

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I assume the power pack you refer to is for electrophoresis, right? What is the heating block for? Can you give a part number that I can look up?

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Yes. The power pack is for electrophoresis. I prefer models where the power pack is a saperate unit from the gel tank. Thus if anything goes wrong... you don't lose the gel tank. I haven't look at catalogs for electrophoresis tanks... those things last about forever.

Heating block is if you want to do any restriction digest work, conduction any molecular biology modification - partial fill in etc....
The heating block in my lab comes from Grant Instruments, (QBT4) unit. It is probably a decade old now.

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Autoclave, video documentation+PC+UV-table, cooling centrifuge (?), balances (if not there)

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Thanks. We have a shared autoclave on our floor (and icemaker). I didn't think about UV table, but that may be something we can borrow as well. I'm not sure I will need an analytical balance right away, but I suppose it may be useful if we need to measure lyophilized DNA or protein. That's primarily what we used it for in my old lab.

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What about other pipettes? Especially a 1-10 micro-litre pipette (this is a scientific forum and you cannot insert Greek symbols ??) would be helpful. We are a poor institute and were really relieved when getting our own one and do not need to borrow it from another lab.

Actually i wrote this to get my 300 posts full

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you could also use a gel doc. we got a biorad gel doc xr and it works nicely. a nanodrop to measure the quality and concentration of your nucleic acids as well, it all depends on your bugdet.

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Another lab has a nanodrop that we can use. I am getting two sets of Eppendorf pipetters (2.5uL, 20, 200, 1000) and a repeater. And of course some pipette-aids.

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