As always, when I am half drunk, I began to reminisce, today’s topic of reminiscence is college. The only thing I can remember right now of college is my final Animal Tissue Culture practical exam partly because it was almost the last thing I did in college and partly because during the exam I came ever so close to disaster.
ATC for the uninitiated basically involves growing cells from animal (we used human) tissue in the lab to further use in experiments or in industrial production of a lot of important drugs. The most important factor in your technique is in maintaining sterile conditions, without which, your experiment pretty much goes to shit. So to ensure sterility we don our lab-coats, masks and the lot, pretty much standard stuff. The only difference between us and a proper lab, being that we preferred to remain barefoot rather than buying a separate pair of slippers exclusively for lab use.
The ATC lab was divided into four 2 by 5 meter cubicles with a corridor outside. Each cubicle had a glass door through which we could be observed. The cubicles were equipped with a Laminar air flow hood, basically a box close on five sides, you sit at the open end and a stream of filtered, sterile air blows at you, this theoretically ensures that all work you carry out inside is in sterile conditions. We additionally used a Bunsen Burner inside the airflow to reduce chances of contamination.
So picture this, a tiny sealed room, no air-conditioning, no fresh air, in forty-degree heat and on top of that, there is a stream of air being blown at you across a hot flame while you are wearing a thick lab coat and a mask which renders breathing normally, near impossible. Now imagine working like this for almost two hours.
On top of that, the examiner was well known for being a bit of a bastard. He looked a bit like a mummified corpse too and that was enough to scare me shitless.
For the practical, we were assigned a set of procedures to carry out to demonstrate our ability to work in the lab, apart for being judged on the actual result of the experiments, the examiner would constantly watch us, peering malevolently through the glass panes as we worked, marking us on our skill.
To start off the day, the electricity in our labs kept going and even when they had rectified the problem by laying down miles of wiring across the floor (which I inevitably tripped over), for some reason the supply to my cubicle kept going on and off. Now when the electricity goes, the airflow stops working so you have to stop work, get up and pull down the cover of the hood to maintain sterility inside.
Wouldn’t you know it, whenever the electricity went, I’d get up to pull down the cover, then suddenly the airflow would come on again. As I would sit down to resume work, there would be the examiner, staring bug-eyed into the lab, licking his chops and writing down something in his note-book. I pretty much was under the impression that he thought I was a bit of an idiot, who kept getting up, pulling the cover half way and then shoving it back. This unnerved me to such an extent that for the first half an hour I gave up work and just sat in one corner doing calculations on a piece of paper till my teacher told me to get a move on and actually do the experiment.
Once I had started though I got caught up in the flow and worked pretty well but every time that gargoyle stuck his head against the glass, I’d lose my rhythm and come close to doing something stupid.
Now working to ensure sterility is not easy unless it’s something you do on a daily basis, the intricacies are... well… too intricate to describe completely. One thing that we were required to do was to wipe down the caps of all bottles handled with an alcohol swab and then set it alight in the flame of the burner to kill all bacteria that may have settled on it.
The undead examiner had just glanced in while I was swabbing a bottle, unnerved, I set it alight, being pure alcohol, it burnt with a clear flame. Not noticing that the thing was still alight, I began to swab it again. The swab caught fire between my fingers. I threw it into one corner of the airflow, somehow managing to stifle a scream. The damn thing wouldn’t go out. If mummy-man looked in now, I knew I’d be dead so with a flick of my fingers I sent the thing to the floor. No-good, it was still happily burning away, still in clear sight of the door. Maybe because of the heat or maybe it was because of the stress, who knows; but my mind just shut down. I sat staring at the flame with horror for what seemed like an hour. I had to act. I finally got up and put it out with my bare foot. Then picked it up and threw it into the trash. As I got back into my stool, I caught him looking at me again, he knew I was upto no good but he hadn’t caught me, which was the important thing.
The rest of the practical went (in my mind) from bad to worse, with a little help from my teacher who as always managed to confuse me. Fortunately though when I came back after four days, I had a near perfect result (I still don’t know how). If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be recollecting the whole episode so eagerly would I?
ATC for the uninitiated basically involves growing cells from animal (we used human) tissue in the lab to further use in experiments or in industrial production of a lot of important drugs. The most important factor in your technique is in maintaining sterile conditions, without which, your experiment pretty much goes to shit. So to ensure sterility we don our lab-coats, masks and the lot, pretty much standard stuff. The only difference between us and a proper lab, being that we preferred to remain barefoot rather than buying a separate pair of slippers exclusively for lab use.
The ATC lab was divided into four 2 by 5 meter cubicles with a corridor outside. Each cubicle had a glass door through which we could be observed. The cubicles were equipped with a Laminar air flow hood, basically a box close on five sides, you sit at the open end and a stream of filtered, sterile air blows at you, this theoretically ensures that all work you carry out inside is in sterile conditions. We additionally used a Bunsen Burner inside the airflow to reduce chances of contamination.
So picture this, a tiny sealed room, no air-conditioning, no fresh air, in forty-degree heat and on top of that, there is a stream of air being blown at you across a hot flame while you are wearing a thick lab coat and a mask which renders breathing normally, near impossible. Now imagine working like this for almost two hours.
On top of that, the examiner was well known for being a bit of a bastard. He looked a bit like a mummified corpse too and that was enough to scare me shitless.
For the practical, we were assigned a set of procedures to carry out to demonstrate our ability to work in the lab, apart for being judged on the actual result of the experiments, the examiner would constantly watch us, peering malevolently through the glass panes as we worked, marking us on our skill.
To start off the day, the electricity in our labs kept going and even when they had rectified the problem by laying down miles of wiring across the floor (which I inevitably tripped over), for some reason the supply to my cubicle kept going on and off. Now when the electricity goes, the airflow stops working so you have to stop work, get up and pull down the cover of the hood to maintain sterility inside.
Wouldn’t you know it, whenever the electricity went, I’d get up to pull down the cover, then suddenly the airflow would come on again. As I would sit down to resume work, there would be the examiner, staring bug-eyed into the lab, licking his chops and writing down something in his note-book. I pretty much was under the impression that he thought I was a bit of an idiot, who kept getting up, pulling the cover half way and then shoving it back. This unnerved me to such an extent that for the first half an hour I gave up work and just sat in one corner doing calculations on a piece of paper till my teacher told me to get a move on and actually do the experiment.
Once I had started though I got caught up in the flow and worked pretty well but every time that gargoyle stuck his head against the glass, I’d lose my rhythm and come close to doing something stupid.
Now working to ensure sterility is not easy unless it’s something you do on a daily basis, the intricacies are... well… too intricate to describe completely. One thing that we were required to do was to wipe down the caps of all bottles handled with an alcohol swab and then set it alight in the flame of the burner to kill all bacteria that may have settled on it.
The undead examiner had just glanced in while I was swabbing a bottle, unnerved, I set it alight, being pure alcohol, it burnt with a clear flame. Not noticing that the thing was still alight, I began to swab it again. The swab caught fire between my fingers. I threw it into one corner of the airflow, somehow managing to stifle a scream. The damn thing wouldn’t go out. If mummy-man looked in now, I knew I’d be dead so with a flick of my fingers I sent the thing to the floor. No-good, it was still happily burning away, still in clear sight of the door. Maybe because of the heat or maybe it was because of the stress, who knows; but my mind just shut down. I sat staring at the flame with horror for what seemed like an hour. I had to act. I finally got up and put it out with my bare foot. Then picked it up and threw it into the trash. As I got back into my stool, I caught him looking at me again, he knew I was upto no good but he hadn’t caught me, which was the important thing.
The rest of the practical went (in my mind) from bad to worse, with a little help from my teacher who as always managed to confuse me. Fortunately though when I came back after four days, I had a near perfect result (I still don’t know how). If I hadn’t I wouldn’t be recollecting the whole episode so eagerly would I?
9 comments:
That is hilarious! I remember being in Biology class and we had to dissect a fetal pig. I named mine "Babe" and then it must have caught on because everyone else started naming their pigs after famous ones. However, I think the smell is forever embedded within my memory because every once in awhile I smell something similar and it reminds me of it. Ewww.
Jill, thanks, the smell was probably formaldehyde to preserve the pig. One of my friends studying to become a doctor, told me how on their first day dissecting cadavers they were just made to sit in font of a vat containing formaldehyde just to get used to the stuff.
We had nothing that cool in our labs because we hardly ever worked with preserved stuff but in first year there was this large plastic drum in the back of the lab full of half-dissected stuff in formalin. It was a bit like my christmas stocking, i'd just stick my hand in and i'd never know what i'd be pulling out!
Truly amazing thing man.You got the perfect results. I couldnt stop laughing for 5 mins after reading the whole incident.
Shivik, remember the exmainer? I've forgotten his name, that guy was scary. Remember the lecture he took on the first day of TY? The one in the womens college of engineering, man that was boring.
That day when i finished the practical, i came out of the lab and went off to ronak and was screaming about the exam for a good 30 mins i think. I can still remember yours and shats faces as you listen to all of it! I really though i would have done really badly prticularly since Moge told me i hadn't inoculated the flask with enough of the trypsinised culture. Thanks for putting up with me that day man!
dudde!! fire in chem labs are my favourite...my best friend and me once set fire to some sulpher chemical and the smell was so bad that the whole class had to go out and we got a free class....still miss the science days.
fun read!
Oh and i don't mind spammers, at least someone has some intention of giving me money :)
You teacher doesn't sound very nice... nevertheless, it was quite an entertaining story
Yeah kartik i remember the name of the examiner "Dr. Wagh". He was shit scary man. He had scared me in the viva too.You were too tensed about your practicals, you were like you would fail but in the end it was your own efforts that gave you the results. We just supported you to not to worry much, everything would be okay.
Ah you scienticians and your funny ways. Every time I visit my friend Beaker in her lab she sits me in a chair and tells me not to touch anything and I laugh at the machine she has that just rocks back and forth. If left there too long I become mesmerised by its motion and fall into a trance-like state. Your lab sounds like even more fun!
Question: How do you keep your bare feet sterile? or is that part of the cooking you with steam process?
aunty, its not foot germs that we were worried about, it was dust. Bacteria on the body pretty much sticks to the body, however dust that's been picked up on shoes may get airborne and contaminate your cultures. I know under ideal conditions we'd have sterilised cloting like this intel men in the ads but hey this was just college.
The steam cooking thingy (or autoclave) in our lab was big enough to hold our teacher, thats just an estimate, i never actually tried this, though i was very tempted to knock her out and shove her in and autoclave the crap out of her
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