Lab Hack: Clean water baths with fishing nets

Techniques: blood testing, protein precipitation, water bath

Field(s): Biochemistry, Clinical Biochemistry

Submitted by: Steve Swanson who is doing Specific Protein Investigations in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry for the hospital system covering the Lothian and Edinburgh area of Scotland.

Lab description: Diagnosing, monitoring and screening for disease in a hospital diagnostic lab including ongoing research to improve and increase the lab’s test repertoire.

Lab Hack:

We have a 37°C water bath that we use to monitor samples requiring cryoglobulin investigations. Blood samples are collected and kept at body temperature. Serum and Plasma samples are stored in the water bath and refrigerated. A positive result would show protein precipitating at the cold temperature samples but not in the warm samples.

However, parts of the labels can get wet and break away from the tube. It’s also hard to fully clean the water bath as we need to wait until the bath is empty so we don’t affect results.

We use a tiny fishing net to scoop out bits of floating paper and keep the water bath clean.

Find a 4-pack of varying sizes of fine mesh nylon fishing nets on Amazon for about $10 or from the local UK Supplier where Steve sourced his.

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