Endy:Victor3 Getting Started

Back to the Endy lab plate reader

Introduction
This page is meant to serve as guide for getting started using the Endy lab plate reader, most of the information on the main plate reader page will be featured here as part of a more step-by-step guide to using the plate reader.

This page is in the very early stages of development

Getting started
Speak to me about using the plate reader. We can set up a meeting where we will -
 * See if our plate reader has the ability to measure what you want to measure.
 * Talk about using the plate reader and creating protocols.
 * Create a user folder and give you the username/password for the machine.
 * Book time on the schedule for you to use the plate reader.
 * Talk about what kind of plates you need to order and use for your experiment.
 * The Endy lab uses these plates but what kind of plate you need varies depending on your experiment.
 * The maximum allowable outer dimensions of a plate are 86 x 128.2 x 25 mm.

Create a protocol
We normally go through this in person but hopefully we can write up the instructions here shortly.

Getting your data

 * If you have access to bionet, the ip address of the plate reader computer is 192.168.4.112 Your folder should be shared so you can get your data over the network.  Failing that you can also email the data to yourself.

Processing your data

 * 1) The plate reader will export data in Excel '95 format.
 * 2) Processing the data will be a lot easier if you use a macro of some sort to reformat the data first. A macro that works on a mac can be found here where you will find instructions for installing it (not as intuitive as it might be).
 * 3) If you are running a time course measuring, for example, absorbance and fluorescence, then you probably want to subtract background values from your data and convert from absorbance to OD600. Some instructions on how to do this can be found here.  if they do not apply to your specific experiment, then please add details to that page.
 * 4) We are currently talking about how best to present data from time courses. Most of our experience is with running time courses of fluorescent protein production in bacterial cultures over time.  For most purposes, simple label vs. time curves are appropriate and often label/OD vs. time curves are appropriate.  Some initial thoughts on how to begin to relate the data back to other variables, such as PoPS can be found here.