I have written before about my admiration of the roll-up-your-sleeves ingenuity of scientists who, when faced with an obstacle, choose to create a solution with materials to hand. But truly great things have been afoot in my laboratory last week.
It all started on Monday with the buzz of a power drill emanating from a disused bay on the other side of the room, still heaped with the junk and detritus of its decamped former inhabitants. When I followed the noise to investigate, I found that a space has been cleared amidst the broken equipment, expired plasmid prep kits, bottles of solutions with dates from the 1990s scribbled on their faded tape labels, and the bashed-up old pipettors of another era.
At this improvised workbench, one of our Italian post-docs has been modestly and methodically crafting a microfluidic chamber from scratch, the sort that is normally machine-tooled to allow the study of living cells subjected to laminar flow. Preparing moulds for the tiny chambers is usually expensive and fussy. But our post-doc found another solution on the internet that he was keen to try. Apparently you can use Shrinky-Dinks, a substance that, as most Americans will recall from their childhood, can be cut out and then baked in the oven to produce smaller, hardened, clear-plastic ornaments. (To get the full effect of the unfolding story, you have to say the word Shrinky-Dink with an Italian accent. Hint: the word Dink has two syllables.)
But some clever engineer who didn’t have the budget for a clean room recently discovered that you can make perfectly serviceable microfluidic chamber moulds using “only a laser printer and a toaster oven”. The ink patterns – or something that you score onto the proto-Shrinky-Dink polymer yourself – shrink to a microscale relief with heating. Thereafter, you pour polydimethylsiloxane onto the mould, cure it and – allora – peel it off.
Our post-doc has been experimenting, drilling, baking and gluing for days now, and just yesterday he finally got his prototype – cobbled together with a few bolts and some sawed-off syringe barrels – working well enough to create the required turbulence-free flow of cell culture medium into his chamber. We crowded around in awe, watching the pink fluid ooze into the tiny little canals on the plastic. I felt a stab of envy, being wholly unable to imagine myself ever creating anything like that. I wouldn’t even know where to start.
But I am just happy to be around people who do.
I have nothing to say here. I’m just happy to be the first person to comment on your post.
Thanks, Henry. Good to know I’m not the only saddo in front of a computer on Saturday night!
Fantastic stuff. Give that postdoc a Chair.
(and I’m not sad. It’s Sunday morning)
No need to give him a Chair — he could probably make one himself out of rubber bands and a handful of empty Coke cans.
OK, there are three of us sad enough to be sat in front of the computer on a Saturday night.
If someone else brings the beer, I’ve got the microwave popcorn.
Cheetos?
I’m always at the computer on Saturday night these days. And this weekend is a long weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving. I’m not ready for Thanksgiving – it’s warm outside!
But, oh, now I forgot to mention how COMPLETELY AWESOME this is! I am very, very backlogged on my other (artsy-fartsy) science blog, but I might have to mention this at some point.
It is rather turning into a French v. Italian ingenuity battle in the lab. Apparently the drill bit is getting dull from overuse. I rather feel I should be trying to make something. But what?
Cupcakes.
Cupcakes? Bupkes.
I’m not sad. I’m only escaping X Factor which the rest of the family insists on watching. Really, I should go to the pub. You’re never alone with an iPhone.
I like the redhead in X Factor.
Hang on, that’s not right is it? I mean X Cars. Or was it Z Files? The Krypton Factor? I wish I had an iPhone.
The Rockford Files, wasn’t it?
No, you’re thinking of the Masterton Inheritance.
Was James Garner in that one, too?
Speaking of kit…I used to love the answering machine intro on the Rockford Files. I had never seen one in real life and it seemed like the most exotic and glamorous thing one could own. We had one of those really heavy black phones hung on the wall with a rotary dial, with a message pad for taking notes.
{Thus endeth this feeble attempt to steer the conversation back on topic.}
I was in, too, on Saturday night (as with them all) but was reading a book as I’ve been getting even worse headaches than usual recently so am trying to cut down on screen gazing. However, I’m back tonight (Sunday). Is that as bad as Saturday?
I remember that answering machine – it played over the credits, didn’t it? I wish we still had them, I discovered that my (alledgely simple) mobile phone has something called voice mail the other day, as it told me I had a message there. (I bought this phone on the grounds of it having large type, being B&W and having no camera or MP3 player). It took me almost the whole train journey to work out how to activate the voice mail service. Then when I finally heard the message, it was my husband telling me his flight had been a bit delayed so he’d be home a little later than planned – the train 15 mins before mine, in fact.
Incredibly useful, see? (not!)
What admirable initiative – give that postdoc a medal!
The thing that amuses me is how the inventors in the lab seem to be subtly competing. We’ve come a long way from the microscope and centrifuge adapter days. I get the sneaking suspicion that they enjoy devising these items more than they actually like populating them with experimental materials.
Meanwhile, I was driving and plodding around Inverness-shire (Scotland) and until I obtain my next camera (next month), only managed to take some field pictures.
Now, since I didn’t choose history, I knew pretty much feck all about the Battle of Culloden [Steel Pic]
Until now. Truly amazing piece of British history.
—
{Thus endeth this feeble attempt to steer the conversation back on topic.}
Shrinky-Dink moulds meant nothing to me until I watched this video protocol on JoVE earlier in the year:-
Shrinky-Dink Hanging Drops: A Simple Way to Form and Culture Embryoid Bodies
JoVE Article PDF
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Jenny, your shout…
It seems the Shrinky-Dink method is being embraced. Fantastic.
By the way, that’s my first experience of JoVE and I was suitably impressed.
So when is he going to start taking orders?
(/me tries to think of an experiment I could do with it. Never mind the hypothesis—the kit is cool!)
My first postdoc mentor excelled at constructing lab equipment from all sorts of bits and pieces. Just during the three years I was in his lab, he built 1) a picospritzer, 2) a “hands-free focus” contraption for the stereo microscope, 3) a plexiglass climate-control chamber for the inverted microscope. All three items were essential for my productivity and publications, so I’m eternally grateful. He also built a very nice harpsichord from scratch, and turned the legs on a lathe that he’d made. The harpsichord sounded quite decent, too (if you like that sort of thing-it drives some people nuts).
The only things I’ve made for my research are several versions of a holder for windowed chicken eggs, and an immunostaining chamber for cells on coverslips (the base is a salvaged lighting cover from
an elevatora lift).bq. an immunostaining chamber for cells on coverslips
Who hasn’t? (Apart from Henry)
I’ve seen commercial versions, but I can’t believe that anyone actually buys them. The commercial ones are usually too restricted in application, anyway. Mine works for coverslips of various sizes, and for comet assay slides as well, which is more usual than immunostaining for me these days.
There’s always a lot of on-the-fly engineering and crafting going on aboard research vessels. In my experience, science would simply not be possible without clever people who know how to make something with basically nothing! (I’m not that great – maybe in the same league as Kristi..)
There’s always a lot of on-the-fly engineering and crafting going
I work in a Drosophila lab, Steffi…don’t give them any ideas!
OK, I’ll bite, Kristi: what on earth is a picospritzer? Something the flies could use to freshen up of an evening?
I regret to say I’ve made no ‘kit’, not even the immunostaining thingy Richard accuses me of. When studying the fossilized bones of dead cattle, which is what I did, you need
vernier calipers (left by previous grad student);
set of large calipers (made up specially by department workshop);
haberdasher’s tape measure (department store, 45p);
er …
… that’s it.
Oh yes, and a stonking great mainframe computer (ah! those were the days) which anyone could easily make out of a jam jar, a washing-machine motor, a piece of string, three egg-boxes and 36578 miles of sticky backed plastic.
Henry, was it one of those mythical computers with punch cards? An older colleague was reminiscing about the days when they’d play practical jokes on each other in the lab by sneaking in at night and shuffling the victim’s stack of cards.
Those computer scientists know how to have a good time, don’t they?
Photos are worth a thousand words, folks…
I want to know how to build a picospritzer. Wow. Actually, when I see this for larger volumes, it seems like it should be attainable. But tips are welcome.
Jenny, is the medium going down in one pipette and up in the other? What is this handy postdoc planning to use the chamber for in the end? Did he refer to this article which is currently inaccessible to be until perhaps such time as I get back to my institution, and if not I will ask for it here .
Henry, was it one of those mythical computers with punch cards?
Ooh, you cheeky young flibbertigibbet, Rohn. For that you can go and stand in the corner of the cave.
Heather, my colleague is studying how single cells land and spread on the substratum when they are forced into particular shapes or widths. I’m not sure where the fluid is going (those are sawed-off syringes, not pipettes) — he was muttering something about the Reynolds Number and turbulence, so it seemed best not to disturb him with trivialities. I’ll find out more and report back!
@ Heather: Our picospritzer was a cross between the Manual Injector in your link, and the fancy commercial varieties available now for hundreds of dollars. I was using it to inject diI into tiny embryonic cranial sensory ganglia, or into epibranchial placodes. DiI is great stuff, except that it crystallizes in saline, and clogs the electrode … hence the need for the constant pressure from the picospritzer.
I’ve never been much for building things, especially if electronics or materials science is involved. No good at programming either. Now if lab equipment required knitting, crocheting, fine embroidery, drawing, painting, or horsemanship, it would be a different story. Sounds as if I’m better-suited for a Jane Austen novel, unfortunately.
Ha ha ha! That conjures up an absolutely lovely image: crocheted pipettor slings; a lovely knitted cozy to keep the media bottles warm.
Haven’t quite worked out how to get the horse into the picture, but that’s Dr Gee’s department.
We don’t quite run to horses at the Maison Des Girrafes. Yet.
what on earth is a picospritzer? Something the flies could use to freshen up of an evening?
I’d be happy to have that stuff too. Has anybody ever made a tiny cradle for a single fly embryo?
Has anybody ever made a tiny cradle for a single fly embryo?
… perhaps in white wood (good for
toothmouthpart marks); with twee musical mobiles dangling over the top (though not, we hope, playing Incey-Wincey Spider or There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly); and a baby alarm to alert the anxious first-time fly parents who are at this moment trying to serve dinner to their bank manager and his wife (banana with prawns, banane bourgignon, followed by cheese, fruit (banana), banoffi pie and banana-flavored coffee) in a home that looks unnervingly like a seventies sitcom with hessian up the walls and tangerine soft-furnishings. Hey, I bet there’s a Drosophila mutant called abigail’s party.I’d like to be a fly on the wall in that nursery.
The best I can do for an application of needle arts to science is this crocheted and beaded sea urchin:
It was a prize for the top score on the embryology portion of the cell biology course for grad students.
And quite rightly so! That’s fab, Kristi.
Aaah – that’s the cutest dangerously spiny and vaguely menacing echinoderm I ever did see. “It’s ADORABLE!!! Absolutely CHARMING !!!” quoth Gee Minor (she of the unicycling girrafes), looking over my shoulder. Gee Minima, however (hopping from her bed to see) is not convinced. Something to do with the absence of eyes.
Last year two students tied for top score, so in addition to the Echinoderm of Excellence in Embryology, I made a Sea Slug of Superior Science:
Perhaps that would be more to Gee Minima’s liking, since there are at least rhinophores and a clear rostral-caudal axis. The Aplysia might also be more appealing:
The good thing about the crocheted marine invertebrates is that they can be made quickly with inexpensive acrylic yarn (in fact, it works better than more expensive natural fiber yarns).
The bad thing is that I’m a self-taught, seat-of-the-pants crocheter, and I couldn’t write a pattern to save my life. Very unscientific – I didn’t keep a lab notebook while making the critters.
For some truly amazing crochet sea creatures, check out Helle Jorgensen’s blog.
She has exhibited some of her work in the traveling crochet coral reef exhibition, and most of her pieces were created with discarded plastic bags.
“seat-of-the-pants crocheter” sounds very funny out of context.
That Aplysia is damned sexy.
I just like the phrase The good thing about the crocheted marine invertebrates is that they can be made quickly with inexpensive acrylic yarn.
Kristi – Between you and Helle Jorgensen, Gee Minor will be in transports of delight. Can’t wait to show her.
@ Jennifer: The Aplysia is still sitting in the gift shop at Woods Hole MBS, AFAIK; perhaps I need to learn something about marketing from Dr. Gee.
@ Richard: All the better to take over the world with crocheted marine invertebrates … Bwahahahaha!
@ Henry: The type of crochet I used to create the nudibranchs et al. is quite simple; may I suggest that Gee Minor be empowered to create her own fuzzy invertebrates? There has to be at least one friendly
crotchetycrocheting granny (or grandpa, don’t mean to be sexist) in Cromer who could teach her the basics. The link above has instructions for the hyperbolic technique, to generate the wavy bits, but you still need to know a few basic crochet stitches.Kristi – actually, we have a much loved elderly cousine who is not only a biologist by profession but also (probably) knows how to crochet. She is one of those people who not only knits her own clothes, but cards and spins the wool herself, too.
Actually, if I said she was elderly she’d probably deck me.
She is one of those people who not only knits her own clothes, but cards and spins the wool herself, too.
There you go, then. Most knitters know a bit of crochet, as it’s often required to assemble and embellish knitted garments.
But truly great things have been afoot in my laboratory last week.
I call grammar-foul! (can’t be arsed to read 52 comments to see if Grant got there first).
Ian: please state the nature of the medical emergency.
What’s the problem there?
(If I am missing something, I can fall back on the convenient excuse that I current;y have a fever of 100.8 F. Not sure what that is in old money…)
38.2
I must admit, I’m wondering what the fuss is, Dr The main thing I am concerned about (“Main thing”? Really? Not feeling too literate today eh? ~Ed.)
Truly great things were afoot, given that it was last week. Have been afoot would work with this week.
That’s my guess anyway.
The past is the past – there is no expiration date after a week. I used the perfect form to indicate that multiple occurrences took place over a past period of time, as opposed to one discrete event as the preterite would imply.
I had to look up ‘preterite’ (hey, I use the tools: I don’t necessarily know their proper names).
Anyway, I’m selling tickets for the Cath vs Jenny match. Henry’s bringing the popcorn.
Doesn’t “have been” imply something that is ongoing though? Whereas “were” implies something that is over?
“We have been married for just over a year” vs. “We were married for just over a year”
“Last week” is over, “this week” is ongoing…
is this one of those things that I made my Dad explain to a French friend over the phone, where both forms are technically correct but one just “sounds wrong” to some people?
I blame my lack of formal education in English grammar. Hence my need to recruit my Dad.
My post crossed with Richard’s.
I will happily fight Jenny as long as she will still sign my book.
Invoking the paternal force is always a shrewd move in grammatical spats.
I think my sentence would have sounded better if I’d said:
“Great things have been afoot in my lab over the past few weeks”. You are right, Cath – although I think the original could be arguably correct, it doesn’t sit well.
bq. Invoking the paternal force is always a shrewd move in grammatical spats.
The hell you say.
Cheers Cath…I forgot to come back and fight my own battles… not scared of JBones or anything…oh no…
“Invoking the paternal force is always a shrewd move in grammatical spats”
You are quite right Jenny! I do it quite often; my Dad speaks French, German, Latin, and a little Spanish and Russian, had a proper education, and has had a long career of patiently explaining grammar to language students from all over the world! I am quite the (linguistic) disappointment 😉
Ian, you owe me one mate! (Kidding! I’m not scared either! Honest!)