Sop Wet Lab Area

Wet lab area

Before the first usage of the wet lab area people have to make themselves familiar with the function and location of personal safety equipment (Oxygen sensor and first aid kit). An introduction by a facility staff member is needed before usage of any machine. BECM provides space to store EM grids in a desiccator. Personal grid boxes need to be clearly labeled and cannot be used by any other person. Storage of frozen grids will be possible in a liquid nitrogen dewar. Any tube that is not clearly labeled and/or not in your allocated space may be discarded without prior notice.

The facility provides a 35 l tipping tank for liquid nitrogen. Once the tank is almost empty the user has to refill it from an available 120 l liquid nitrogen tank. Once the liquid nitrogen tank is empty (less than 15 l on display) the remaining liquid should be transferred into the available small (4 l) dewars. Internal users have to bring it to the central store before 3:30 pm for refilling. External users have to inform staff before 3:30 pm to do it for them.

Any radioactive work for negative stain has to be done in the specified area in the wet lab. Due to this, pregnant people are by Belgian law not allowed to enter the wet lab space. Internal people are in case of pregnancy encouraged to ask colleagues to do this works for them. External people can contact facility staff. They will treat this information confidential and can do the negative staining for them. All radioactive waste has to be disposed in a designated container and kept separate from normal waste. Note: We separate high and low radioactive waste. In case of any spilling the user has to clean the area immediately.

Any equipment located in the wet lab area is common equipment. Therefore, the user has to take care about the proper treatment of it. After use any piece of equipment has to be brought back to its original space. In case of accidental damage to anything the user has to inform staff members. If the user finds the equipment damaged before the start of the experiment he has to inform the staff immediately. Once broken equipment is found and not mentioned previously, the staff will make the last user responsible for further action.

Cryo-EM and negative stain grids need to be purchased by the user. If the user does not yet have negative stain grids, they can obtain one box with 50 grids from the facility. The user will deliver a new replacement box back to the facility. The facility can provide some cryo-EM grids for testing, but they will have to be replaced with equal or similar grids by the user. Cryo-grid boxes are also group specific equipment. External users can use for their experiment a limited number of boxes from the facility that will be tracked. Users are responsible for loosing and/or breaking of these boxes.