May 14, First Day of Lab

Tuesday May 14

First Day of Lab
Lab Safety Rules, Asceptic Technique, Microscope, Sterilization, preparing culture media, Sample Collection, Spread Plate
We learned Microscope Magnification. We will mostly be using 400X magnification

http://www.cas.miamioh.edu/mbi-ws/microscopes/Magnification.html

Learned Importance of Safety
-to reduce the risk of infection and prevent potentially harmful microbes from leaving the laboratory

Proper safety procedure for the start of each day in the lab includes putting on a lab coat, washing hands throughly with antibacterial soap, and decontaminating the workbench with disinfectant.

Joseph Lister first introduced carbolic acid, now called phenol, to sterilise surgical instruments. We still use a form of phenol (2% phenol) as the lab disinfectant today.

 Before washing our hands, Dr. Pathakamuri had us put our thumbprint on an agar plate
Agar helps bacteria grow.
After washing our hands, we put our thumbprint on a different section of the agar plate. We put the plate in the 25'C incubator.

Next, we learned the Aseptic Technique.

This technique came from Joseph Lister.

We first lit the bunsen burner, put our hook tool above the dark blue flame to turn bright red all the way through to thoroughly decontaminate the hook. Next, we opened a tube, held it above the dark blue flame right side up, on a slight slant to decontaminate the top. We then practiced putting the hook tool inside, decontaminating and covering the top of the tube, and decontaminating the hook once again.

Next, we took bacteria samples using cotton swabs from a place in the environment of our choosing to grow on an agar plate.

 We took two sample bacteria's: the first from the back of Maura Bobak's tongue, and the second from the water fountain on first floor of Cosmas and Damian Building at Franciscan University. We used a cotton swab for both.

After obtaining a sample from the fountain piece, we learned how to properly spread the bacteria on an agar plate with the cotton swab, shown below.
This spreading technique will be used in future tests.

Our thumbprint and Environmental Agar plates were both labeled and placed in the 25'C incubator.
Attention: Samples from our microbiology lab are to be put on the nursing majors shelf, not the biology majors shelf, or we're in big trouble.

As we left the lab, We cleared our lab bench, sprayed and wiped down the lab bench with 2% phenol, washed our hands thoroughly, and hung up our lab coats. Nothing was left in the lab, or taken from the lab out. This is standard procedure for each day.