• Question: When you are working with bacteria do you have to wear/use special equipment?

    Asked by katherinedavison to Ben on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Benjamin Hall

      Benjamin Hall answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Yes, I do.

      Whenever I’m working in the lab I wear a labcoat and nitrile gloves (the gloves protect my hands from chemicals and my samples from protein and DNA that might be on my hands).

      If I’m working with E. coli then I always have a bunsen burner flame on to keep my bench sterile and I use ethanol (alcohol) to sterilise all of my equipment. Equipment I use to move bacteria around include glass rods, inocculating loops, toothpicks and pipetttes.

      If I’m injecting plant leaves with agrobacterium I wear eye goggles, because the bacteria can spray into your face and is pretty unpleasant!

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