Expectations on Lab Members

We want to maintain a collaborative environment, where people contribute, share and respect each other's knowledge and expertise to generate exciting results.

 

 

General Lab Rules

Be polite to each other (style of emails, style of conversations, no usage of bad language in the lab).

 

Since all lab members are likely to be under stress, when a conflict arises, please consider (1) the other person is also likely to be stressed, (2) the other person may have a different style from yours in expressing or not expressing his/her reaction, (3) every action has a reaction (Newton) so even if there is no direct consequence, there is still damage being done.

 

(1) If person A is angry at person B, they should first try and work it out amongst each other, before coming to me unless person A or B for whatever reason cannot or does not want to work it out directly with the other person and needs my help in finding a strategy on how to handle the issue.

(2) If persons A and B cannot work it out with each other and there is no reason to ask my advise first, then the two people should come together to me and not separately.

 

 

 

Wepage updating and organization

Nobody should modify flan or judithks webpages except people listed below, unless special permission has been obtained from Judith.

 

 

1. Seminar Scheduling and File Posting

Dan, Judith

For details, see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~judithks/lab/jksSeminar.html

 

 

 

2. Webpage updating

Naveena, Dan, Judith

 

 

3. Flan webpage updating

Naveena, Dan


4.  Scheduling of spectrophotometer, fluorimeter and circular dichroism instruments.

 Arpana

 

 

Instrumentation & Equipment

We make an effort in having everything that affects more than one person assigned someone responsible. If we are missing something in the list below, pls. contact Judith. All questions or concerns or suggestions regarding the responsibility should be directed first at the responsible person, and this person has absolute authority in enforcing the rules for the respective items. If there is a problem, the authority and the user should come and talk to Judith together.

 

Centrifuges - including broken parts, rings and ultracentrifuge

Dan

Laminate floor hood certification every 6 months

Fernanda

Microscope

Fernanda

Incubators (maintenance, repair, replacing CO2-cylinders , water, filter replacement every 2 years)

Fernanda

Pipettes and Pipette Aids

Kalyan

Water baths

Fernanda

 

 

 

 

PCR machine  

Kalyan

Balances, pH meter (calibrate every monday and maintain the calibration log) 

Fernanda

Gel apparatuses  

Fernanda

Water purification system (including sanitization and repair) 

Fernanda

Fridges and Freezers

Arpana

 

 

Spectrophotometer 

Naveena

Cuvettes 

Arpana

Nitrogen and argon cylinder supply

Arpana

Biorad purification system/HPLC 

Dan

 

Computers (update of virus definition files, windows update, communication with Phil Greer)  

Naveena

Servers at CMU (maintenance, restarting, user access)

Dan

Servers in Struct Bio at Pitt (user access, communication with Phil)

Naveena

 

 

 

 

Materials

 

It is the responsibility of each lab member to inform the person responsible for a certain item when a reordering is necessary or if any problems have been detected.

We make an effort in having everything that affects more than one person assigned someone responsible. If we are missing something in the list below, pls. contact Judith. All questions or concerns or suggestions regarding the responsibility should be directed first at the responsible person, and this person has absolute authority in enforcing the rules for the respective items. If there is a problem, the authority and the user should come and talk to Judith together.

 

1. Commercial Stocks of Special Chemicals.

 

1D4 antibody

Naveena

Detergents 

Naveena

isotopes    

Arpana 

Sepharose and other column materials  

Naveena 

Serum  

Arpana

Media 

Arpana

Geneticin, heparin, pluronic acid, tetracycline and other tissue culture supplies    

Kalyan

 

 

2. Antibodies

list to be provided by Kalyan and his name should be listed under responsibility.                    Kalyan

 

3. Cell lines

list to be provided by Fernanda and her name should be listed under responsibility.

 

 

4. Plasmids & E.coli Stocks harboring specific Plsmids

Kalyan


Kalyan to make list and to maintain three boxes In the list:
gene/mutation, name of plasmid, sequence of plasmid, information on cloning sites, who made it, where the original came from (e.g. pCMV, Phil Reeves, MIT), sequencing results (is this possible?)

 

 

5. Primers

Kalyan 

list to include the name, the sequence and what plasmid/gene it is for.

 

 

6. Competent Cells & E.coli Expression cells main Stock

Kalyan

(not supply - every day supply is the responsibility of each lab member for their own consumption) like BL21 etc.

 

 

7. Enzymes related to Nucleic Acids

Kalyan

restriction enzymes and all other enzymes

 

 

8. Enzymes related to Proteins

Kalyan  

proteases, PNGase F, other?

 

 

9. Ligands

Kalyan

11-cis retinal, all-trans retinal, mGluR ligands when we get them.

 

 

10. All general chemicals and solvents

Kalyan

Chemicals list at Room temparature

Chemicals list at 4C

Responsibility for reordering lies generally with all lab members. If an item is low, reorder. If you reorder something, ask around if other people noticed other items to be low.

 

If you are busy or if you are not familiar with the ordering, note on paper on the wall next to the chemicals what needs to be ordered, together with your name, date and urgency of the request. Kalyan will order once a week. If you need Kalyan to order something urgently, make sure he knows.

 

Orders over $150 require Judith's approval.

 

Arpana maintains the chemicals list.  

 

 

11. Liquid nitrogen

 

Department keeps a liquid nitrogen dewar in the 2nd floor glasswash/autoclave room for general use.  Please do not use the dewars in the NMR lab or the x-ray crystallography lab.  Please notify me or Amy Farrell (amf61@pitt.edu) when the dewar is empty. 

Kalyan

 

 

 

 

12. General lab supplies

 

Responsibility for reordering lies generally with all lab members. If an item is low, reorder. If you reorder something, ask around if other people noticed other items to be low.

 

If you are busy or if you are not familiar with the ordering, note on paper on the wall next to the chemicals what needs to be ordered, together with your name, date and urgency of the request. Kalyan will order once a week. If you need Kalyan to order something urgently, make sure he knows.

 

Orders over $150 require Judith's approval.

 

 

 

13. Snacks and coffee

 

Judith will refill snack box, coffee and creamer. Anybody is welcome to add to it.

Judith

 

 

Purchases

 

 

 

Master copy and excel spread sheet of all purchases made in the lab is maintained by Arpana. It is the responsibility of each lab member to provide Arpana with a copy of the order. When ordering something from common vendors, VWR, Sigma etc. pls. check around if other people want to order something as well since we can save on the shipping costs if orders to go out concertedly. All orders over $150 require Judith's approval. Otherwise, see rules above.

Arpana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waste Disposal

 

Ethidium Bromide

Arpana

Sharps

Arpana

Chemicals Waste

Arpana

Broken Glass

Arpana

 

 

 

 

 

Radioactivity Officer: Arpana Dutta

Lab Manager & Safety Officer: Fernanda Balem

It is the responsibility of the Lab Safety Officer to see to it that no unsafe practices (open food, unlabeled solvents, open bottles etc) are practiced in the laboratory. It is also the responsibility of the lab safety officer once a year go through the check-list.

Please email Judith (judithks@cs.cmu.edu) for further clarifications in the above information. 

 


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Web page maintained by Naveena (naveena@cs.cmu.edu) and Judith (judithks@cs.cmu.edu)
Last modified: July 22, 2009