• Question: Do you use old fashioned methods for carrying out experiments, or is technology a big part of your methods?

    Asked by Sashascience7613 to Ben, Lizzie, Francis, Max, Sian on 7 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Ben Mulhearn

      Ben Mulhearn answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Technology is definitely a really big part of my methods. For example, we use a laser machine to analyse cells called a ‘FLOW CYTOMETER’. This allows us to measure up to 15 or so different things about the cell at the same time. It’s a very fancy expensive machine, but before we can run cells in it we have to use traditional (or old fashioned?) techniques to get them ready for it. So, I would say definitely a combination!
      Here’s a picture of a flow cytometer we use at Manchester: https://sites.google.com/site/coreflowlabuom/home

    • Photo: Francis Man

      Francis Man answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Both really. Like Ben, I use a flow cytometer, but the one I have is not as advanced (it’s still a complex machine). I also use a PET scanner, which can give me 3D images of radioactive molecules in animals, it’s very high-tech.

      On the other hand I use a very simple chemical technique called “thin-layer chomatography”. Basically you put a drop of your chemical on a strip of paper and dip it in different liquid. The distance the chemical migrates can tell me a lot about it’s properties. I use the pencil, paper and a simple calculator a lot.

    • Photo: Sian Richardson

      Sian Richardson answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      Its a bit of both. For example I can measure the cell density of my culture using a spectrophotometer, which uses a a particular wavelength of light to measure how dense a sample is. This is a technique that has been around a long time, there is always newer and more accurate spectrophotometers but the technique is still the same. Currently, I have to take a sample of my culture and measure it separately. Now I have a probe, directly into my culture which acts like a spectophotometer and can tell me how dense my culture is real time, so I know how fast my cell are growing. This is time saving and reduces the risk of contamination if I don’t have to take samples to know what my cells are doing

    • Photo: Lizzie Wright

      Lizzie Wright answered on 10 Mar 2018:

      Definitely both. Some techniques we use are very simple and old, such a staining cells so that we can see them under a microscope. But technology is a big part and new techniques allow us to discover a lot more.

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