STERILIZATION AND CULTURE MEDIA PREPARATION FACILITY
HEAD OF STERILIZATION AND CULTURE MEDIA PREPARATION FACILITY: Eduardo Díaz Fernández.
The Sterilization Service of the CIB is devoted to sterilize, through dry or wet heat, the working material and wastes of the different research groups.
The Sterilization Service has:
- two ovens (D06836, Memmert) for sterilization by dry heat.
- two autoclaves of 490 L (LE-2, LV-1, Matachana) and 2 autoclaves of 165 L (500V-2, Matachana), for sterilization by wet heat.
One oven is used to sterilize at 160 ºC the glass material of the different groups of the Center. The second oven is used to sterilize at 230ºC the glass material that has been previously treated with NaOH and that will be utilized for the isolation and manipulation of RNA. This material must arrive to the service before 11:00h, and it is given back the next working day.
Every day, solid material and liquids are sterilized at different pressures and temperatures in the four autoclaves. Solid material is received before 14:30h conveniently wrapped and identified. The liquid material is received before 13:30h in glass bottles accurately identified. In those cases that liquids do not support the standard sterilization temperature (120 ºC), as is the case of several sugars, sterilization takes place at 110ºC and these media should arrive to the service in two time periods, either before 10:00h or 12:00h. All materials sterilized in the autoclaves are ready for use within the same day.
Waste material, i. e., biological residues, etc., must be conveniently wrapped and identified in adecuate containers (see Sterilization Rules). The containers are introduced in the autoclaves within metallic recipients and once they are sterilized, they must be taken back from the Service in the next 24h.
The Culture Media Preparation Service is associated to the Sterilization Service and it has all the necessary equipment (balances, pH meter, stirrers, refrigerators, etc.) for preparation and storage of culture media (e.g., LB, LB-agar) and sterile solutions (e.g., PBS, EDTA, TBE, TAE, Tris-HCl pH 7.4, etc.) (See Products). The Service prepares also RNase-free solutions (e.g., H2O) for working with RNA.
The service remains open until 16:30h from September to June, and until 15:00h from June to September.
LABWARE WASHING FACILITY
The cleaning personnel is responsible for collecting, cleaning and restoration of the laboratory material to the different research groups. They perform also the collection of biological waste from laboratories at night, and its transfer to the Sterilization service to be processed in the early morning.
LABWARE WASHING FACILITY RULES:
1) All laboratories will be equiped with trays in accesible places and identified as “ Dirty Material”, in which the materials to be washed should be placed. 2) All materials placed in these trays, SHOULD BE PREVIOUSLY RINSED. If the material does not fulfill this requirement, it will NOT BE COLLECTED.