Mmm... lung tissue

Today was another day of DNA isolation from lung tissue. I am teaching the Big Blue Assay to two people so they can do it after I am long gone! Today, I taught Bingxuan (a Chinese grad student that I worked on the a PCR project with and I like a great deal) how to do the isolation. Part of the process involves using a tissue grinder to break down the tissue and then lyse the cells. And today I broke the tissue grinder while I was grinding some lung tissue. So as the homogenate is spilling all over my gloves and the paper towels, I attempted to calmly open the package with the cell strainer (Bingxuan had gone to get the next tissue to grind) and then rinse the cells off my gloves with lysis buffer and scrape some of the tissue off the paper towel. As a result I can't imagine that I will get good DNA from the tissue but on the bright side the lung lobe from the rat was pretty large so I will be able to do a second isolation. And for the first time in about two weeks, I will be leaving before 4 pm (but coming in the weekend, so it really evens out) to watch some Hetty Wainthropp.

"Pittman, firing people can give you a pretty good buzz, but it's a poor substitute for killing. I realize that now." - Dale