Today I was ordered, I mean given the go ahead, to order the yeast strains that I need for Important Project for Major European Conference. I was hoping that Advisor would follow up on meeting with someone that actually works on yeast. Yes, this means that we, as in the entire lab, do not work with yeast. In fact, no one (including Advisor) has ever worked on yeast in our lab. I, personally, have never worked on yeast. Our lab works with E. coli.
This meant a trip to the library to read up on yeast stuff. Eventually, I found The Holy Grail of yeast protocols (subtly titled: Yeast Protocols) (amongst other books). This led to me occupying the department photocopier for a good half hour. (The library will only allow me to check out books for three weeks). It then occurred to me (I’m not sure why) that an electronic copy of said stuff would be lovely. So, I decided to break in the lab’s new-ish scanner and scanned in all the photocopies.
On the plus side, I now have all that stuff labeled and collected in Bookends (the reference management system, not the things on shelves). On the down side, I still need to read all this stuff. But I did figure out what I needed to order the yeast strains. So, it isn’t all negative.
At least today my procrastination didn’t have to do with surfing the internet!
Ah, but yeast are way more fun and exciting (and better smelling) than E. coli. But, um, stock up on good beer before you really get going, if you’re growing any of the really fun strains. Killian’s usually feeds the craving quite well.
(And feel free to e-mail me if you have basic yeast questions. I may not be able to answer, since I only work with Saccharomyces, but I’d be happy to help if I can.)