Ependorf mastercycler gradient pcr system, nanodrop 2000, rainin LTS pipettes :)
-MacVector
-Invitrogen Countess
-AKTA FPLC
-NanoVue spec
-Rainin pipets (wish we had them in my lab)
-Retrospect Backup System
-BioRad ChemiDoc XRS+
OMG- you are so right on with Nanodrop. I wish I had that in graduate school!
What's so special about Rainin Pipettes?
They're the shit. You don't have to pound the tips on or break your finger ejecting them.
If ninjas used pipets, they'd use Rainin. Those things are so smooth and accurate and Brian is 100% right about the tips.
Roche Lightcycler 480
And seriously GR ... BioRad? The only thing BioRad was ever good for, IMNSHO, were the t-shirts they donated to us for our softball team back when I was in grad school. Ok, they make good protein boxes and power sources, but their imaging and real time systems have sucked so hard that I will actively disparage them whenever the opportunity arises (like right now).
The ChemiDoc works pretty well. I've got a nasty post building about BioRad and some of their shite equipment.
I hate the biorad thermal cycler my boss bought for this lab before I took it over. It's an absolute piece of shit. I wish I had the mastercycler we had in my PhD lab.
Tom- isn't it a pain to load those little glass capillaries on the LC? Or is the 480 a plate model?
We use an ABI Step-One for qPCR and it has served us well. The software is super easy.
We don't use their chemistry though- it's like 3X the price of everyone else even with their discount.
I'm an image person, so the thing that really rocks my world is the CRI Nuance Liquid tunable crystal filter Camera. It automatically subtracts background, and you can do 9 color immunofluorescence/IHC.
I also like the newer invitrogen/ABI personal taqman thermocycler. I don't remember what it's brand name is, because we always referred to it by it's nickname (Yossarian).
Pierce's/Fisher's "Superblock" is some sort of magical elixir that gets rid of ever single nonspecific band I've thrown at it.
I agree with everyone else: BioRad sucks ass. We were actually forbidden to buy anything from them in my PhD lab.
Jade: The 480 is a 96 (or 384) well plate system. I used one of the first ever capillary PCR systems (Idaho Technologies) back in graduate school ... it was a demo. It was a pain in the rear. Yah, it cut down cycling and reagent time, but by the time you got your samples loaded and ran (and breaking 20 capillaries in the process) it all seemed to even out. We stuck with our MJ's.
I could never understand how so many people adopted the capillary system. Same with systems like Cepheid and Rotorgene. I understand the optics are great but set up must be a major pain in the ass.
Geeka- I've used that SuperBlock too. I'm not doing much protein work now, but when we did, I think we bought all the protein ladders from Biorad.
One thing we all use for our small heat blocks are those bath beads from Lab Armor. Those are pretty cool.
I use the LabArmor beads and love them. A service rep followed up with me to see how they are working out and I told him they rocked! And to be even more kick ass, the dude sent me a free shirt. Love those dudes.
I met the Founder/CEO, Rich Jarvis, at a conference this past year. Very cool and nice guy. If you go to their booth, he'll most likely be there meeting scientists.
They'll probably be at Neuroscience, I imagine, since it has such a big exhibitor section. Or maybe Cell Bio.
NikkilinaWashington University School of Medicine
I do a ton of Westerns, so I love the Millipore SNAPid system. It takes half an hour from the time you finish your transfer to the imager. It's a HUGE time saver and I haven't had any problems with getting great blots out of it.
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