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Rules for the Applied Microbiology

Laboratory

Planning and preparation for this course is time-consuming and most materials areperishable. To save the supervisor's sanity, the following rules must be followed.

Scheduling

You must attend on the first day, and must plan to work with the team to which you

are assigned. You may make arrangements to miss scheduled days as long as your

team agrees, but then you will count on the others to do it right without your input.

Attendance is a responsiblity issue. Your notebook pages will indicate the extent of

your involvement and evaluation of your performance will reflect that involvement. It

is a good idea to plan to attend all of the formally scheduled sessions.

The introduction for interns lists activities that will be conducted during the formal

sessions. The first week will be quite busy, as will the second day of the second week.

After the second week all work will be self scheduled.

Interns' responsibilities

It can be difficult to keep up with the needs of a large group of interns because culture

materials and assays must continually be prepared and sterilized in advance,

contaminated materials must be sterilized and disposed of properly, anaerobic jarsmust be sealed and re-opened on schedule, and interns will require individual

assistance. If forty people each approach the supervisor for help just once per day,

how much do you think that person could get done? To help ensure that your

supervisor has time for other responsibilities, the following rules are in effect:

Each team must prepare and sterilize its own plates, tubes, and/or assay

materials. Label all materials with the team designation.

Each team will be responsible for cleaning up its materials, including

sterilization and cleaning of reusable glassware.

You are expected to require some help recalling how to use the microscopes

and learning how to interpret slides during the training sessions. After that,

questions are welcome, but repeated requests to "please look at my Gram stain"

may result in a lower evaluation.

Each team is responsible for preparing anaerobic jars and for opening them.

There is limited space in each jar, there is a limited number of jars, and

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generator envelopes cost a few dollars each. Please conserve materials, and

share a jar with another group if you have just a plate or two to incubate.

Use the incubators for development of cultures, NOT FOR STORAGE. When

you have finished developing a culture or assay, remove it and store or dispose

of it properly.

DO NOT PUT LABELING TAPE on any tube or cap - tape makes cleaning

them all the more difficult. Use a marker to label tubes.

All contaminated materials must be sterilized prior to cleaning or disposal

o Plates - place in a disposable autoclave bag (do not overfill - get a new

bag if 2/3 full)

o Re-usable broth tubes and agar slants with screw caps - LOOSEN THE

CAP and place the tube in a rack for sterilization, keeping broth and agar

tubes separate

o 13 x 100 mm Disposable culture tubes (assays) - place in rack separately

from screw cap tubes. Stinky ones must be placed in the appropriate

fume hood.

If the size of the group permits, each team will have a designated work area,

and share responsibility for one or more microscopes. The designated area must

be kept clean, microscopes kept in good working order, and any problems

reported.