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Cherrie Sherman, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, explains why she prefers the ali-Q™2 Aliquoting Pipet Controller and what she uses it for.
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Tamlyn Oliver: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Biocompare’s Tech Insights podcast, where we speak to scientific experts about new tools and technology that can help advance your research. I'm Tamlyn Oliver, Managing Editor of Biocompare. Today's guest is Cherrie Sherman, a post-doc at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai. She's going to talk to us about her experiences using a pipette controller and share some pipetting tips as well. Thanks for joining us today, Cherrie.
Cherrie Sherman: Thank you for having me, Tamlyn. It's great to be here.
Tamlyn Oliver: You're welcome. All right, I have quite a few questions, so let's get started. How often and for what applications are people in your lab using a pipette controller?
Cherrie Sherman: So, my fellow researchers and I use a pipette controller a lot. It is a very important tool in cell culture maintenance. We use a pipette controller when we prepare cell culture media, aliquot reagents, and when we split or passage the cells. We also use it when we prepare solutions or buffers for experiments such as western blotting, histology, and others.
Tamlyn Oliver: All right, thank you. What differentiates the ali-Q 2 from other pipette controllers?
Cherrie Sherman: So, the big difference with ali-Q 2 is the volume setting for aliquoting, which I personally love. I always aliquot serum, Pen/Strep, L-glutamine, other cell culture supplements, and other agents in small volume. And with this feature, I can precisely aliquot liquids from as little as 0.5 ml up to five ml. In this way, ali-Q 2 is also repeater pipette, and I can dispense exactly the same amount over and over again, in addition to using it like every other pipette controller for pipetting with serological pipettes.
The ali-Q 2 variable speed model has another setting, a custom adjustable flow setting with seven flow speeds. Its aliquot speed setting gives me the ability to control the flow of the liquid. For example, I set ali-Q 2 to low speed when I change the media of my cell culture to avoid disturbing the attached cells, and high speed when I'm preparing solutions and aliquoting reagents.
Tamlyn Oliver: Okay. Thanks for that thorough description. How has the ali-Q 2 changed your pipetting experience?
Cherrie Sherman: So, since we bought ali-Q 2, I honestly enjoy pipetting and aliquoting liquid. With ali-Q 2 there is no need to eyeball the volume that I'm aspirating and dispensing. It perfectly dispenses the exact amount every single time. Ali-Q 2 helps me tremendously with my work. I use ultracentrifuge machine to isolate samples such as virus particles and extracellular vesicles a lot.
Ultracentrifuge machines are extremely sensitive. Therefore, you need a perfect balance between your loaded samples. So, I normally weigh the ultracentrifuge tubes containing my samples to make sure that I won't have any balance issue. With the help of ali-Q 2, I stopped weighing my tubes. Once, I literally weighed the tubes containing my samples after using ali-Q 2, and they weigh almost exactly the same. Almost perfectly balanced, just the difference of 0.01 to 0.02 grams, which is totally tolerable by an ultracentrifuge machine. So, I do a lot of ultracentrifugation. So, ali-Q 2 helps me save a lot of time.
Tamlyn Oliver: Great. It sounds like you would recommend ali-Q 2 to researchers. But can you talk to me about what the benefits are as well?
Cherrie Sherman: Yes. I would definitely recommend ali-Q 2 to all researchers. It really is a great tool and it's a must have pipette controller in every lab. Ali-Q 2 helps me a lot in my own work in the lab. Ali-Q 2 makes it more enjoyable to aliquot liquids. It dispenses the precise volume with perfect flow. And in my opinion, will save researchers a lot of time. I also use it with the VistaLab’s Wobble-not serological pipettes, such a smart design. I always have a drip free aliquoting experience when I use both.
Tamlyn Oliver: Okay. Thanks, Cherrie, for sharing your experiences and expertise. For a more in-depth description of the pipette controller Cherrie has spoken about here, please read the related article, Reduce the Strain of Manual Serological Pipetting with ali-Q 2, and thanks so much for listening. For more information on products, technologies and the latest scientific advancements, please visit biocompare.com and have a great day.