Introduction (Definition of Terms)- Part 1

Molecular Biology Laboratory

Space where molecular biology studies are done.
House equipment, reagents and samples needed to run experiments

Cloning Lab
Cell Culture Lab
RNA lab
Yeast Lab
Bacteria lab
Animal Lab

Specialized Mol Bio Labs

Biosafety Level

The ___________ of a laboratory can limit what you can and cannot do in it. and states which organism or viruses can be handled

Biosafety Level 1

general laboratories, general teaching laboratories

Biosafety Level 2

handling infectious microbes

Biosafety Level 3-4

for the higher levels for containment

Bates Colleg General Equipment Laboratory

One of the neatest types of laboratories
It is where equipment is housed that a laboratory does not owned
Equipment are for the general use of everyone

Erlenmeyer Flask or Beakers

When we create our agents you need vessels for mixing called ____

Reagent Bottles

Used to store reagents with different volumes and usually not stored in large volumes due to laboratory limited spaces

Graduated Cylinder

Use to measure Larger Volumes
Mixing in this is highly Prohibited

Glass pipettes

We generally use for corrosive agents for the stock solutions
We also use them for acids and the bases

Pasture Pipette

They have a cotton or synthetic plug at the top, commonly used in cell culture to help prevent contamination by blocking airborne particles.

is a thin, glass or plastic dropper used to transfer small amounts of liquids.

Centrifuge Tubes

are thick-walled tubes designed to withstand high-speed spinning in a centrifuge.

Microcentrifuge Tubes

also called Eppendorf tubes are small plastic tubes used for microliter-volume procedures.

Multi-well plates

Flat plastic plates with multiple wells used for culturing cells or running assays.

Tube Rack

is a holder used to organize and support tubes of various sizes.

Glass Test Tube with a Cap / Plastic Cell Culture Tube

These are culture tubes used for growing microorganisms or maintaining cell cultures.

Petri Dishes or Culture Dishes

Shallow, circular dishes (plastic or glass) used for various laboratory purposes such as cultivating bacteria, growing cells, or holding samples.

Serological Pipette

A long, graduated plastic pipette used with a pipette pump to accurately measure and transfer 1 mL to 50 mL of liquid.

Top Loading Balance

For measuring greater weights for your reagents

Buiosafety Cabinet

This is a workspace especially when we are doing culture of microbes

Class 2 Cabinet

The filtered are leaving it contains no pathogens

Filtration System

In a laboratory, we require distilled water. We make use of a ___________in order to treat our water.

Standing Autoclave
Sterilization by Wet Heat

_______ is a vertical steam sterilizer used to kill microorganisms through pressurized saturated steam.

Drying Oven
Sterilizaiton by Dry HEat

A ____________ is a heated chamber used to remove moisture from samples, instruments, and glassware.

UC-VIS Spetrophotometer

is an analytical instrument that measures how much ultraviolet (UV) and visible (VIS) light a sample absorbs.

Specialized UV-VIS Spectrophotometer

A more advanced form of UV–VIS spectrophotometer with additional capabilities.

Atomic Absorption Spectrometer

measures the concentration of metal ions in a sample by analyzing how atoms absorb light at specific wavelengths.

Reaction Temperature

These are the specific temperatures required for a chemical or biological reaction to occur optimally.

Incubation Temperatures

These are the temperatures at which samples, cultures, or organisms are maintained for growth or reaction over time.

Ambient/ Room Temperature

This refers to the temperature of the surrounding environment, usually 20–25°C in the laboratory.

Electronic Pipette

is a motor-driven pipette that automatically aspirates and dispenses liquid with high accuracy and less hand fatigue.

Pipettor or Micropipette

is a manual air-displacement pipette used to measure small volumes of liquid.

Mutichannel Pipettor

s a micropipette with 8 or 12 channels that allows simultaneous pipetting into rows of a microplate.

Shaking Microbial Incubator

is a temperature-controlled chamber equipped with a shaking platform that constantly agitates cultures.

Cell Culture Incubator

is designed to maintain the strict environment needed by eukaryotic cells (mammalian or animal cells). with continuous carbon Dioxide

The centrifugal force

pushes heavier components to the bottom of the tube (pellet), leaving lighter components on top (supernatant).

Tabletop Centrifuge

Designed for small tubes, such as microcentrifuge tubes (0.5–2 mL).

Refrigerated Centrifuge

Can handle larger tubes, such as conical tubes (15–50 mL), microcentrifuge tubes, and even culture plates.Equipped with a cooling system to maintain low temperatures during centrifugation, preventing heat-sensitive samples from degradation.

Orbital Shaker

is a laboratory device that gently rotates or shakes samples in a circular motion
Washing gels, membranes, and blots in molecular biology experiments

• Staining procedures

• Mixing solutions without spilling

Hot Plate Stirrer

is a laboratory instrument that heats and stirs solutions simultaneously.

• Heating reagents that require long incubation at controlled temperature

• Stirring solutions continuously to ensure even heating

Vortex Mixer

is a device that rapidly agitates small tubes by creating circular vibrations.

• Common uses:

  • Mixing reagents in microcentrifuge tubes

  • Resuspending pellets after centrifugation

Sonicator

uses high-frequency sound waves to generate vibrations and cavitation in liquid samples.

• Common uses:

  • Homogenization of cells, tissues, or protein samples

  • Disrupting cell membranes to extract DNA, RNA, or proteins

Microwave

is a device used to heat or dissolve samples quickly and evenly.

• Common uses:

  • Dissolving reagents or chemicals

  • Accelerating chemical reactions that require heat

Imaging System

is a device that captures images of samples for analysis.
Can detect signals in UV light, visible light, or other wavelengths, depending on the system.

• Common uses:

  • Imaging gels (e.g., agarose, SDS-PAGE)

  • Observing fluorescence or chemiluminescence signals

  • Documenting experimental results for records or publications

Molarity

______is the concentration of a solution in terms of moles per liter:

Mole

A ________is the standard unit for measuring a large number of very small particles (atoms, molecules, ions).

6.022 × 10^-23

Avogadrogs Number

Weight/Volume (% w/v)

• Measures grams of solute per 100 mL of solution.

• Common units: g/mL, kg/L, etc.

• Usually used for solid solutes dissolved in a liquid.

• For liquid solutes, convert volume to grams using density before dissolving in a liquid.

Volume/Volume (% v/v)

• Measures volume of solute per 100 mL of solution.

• Common units: mL/mL, L/L, etc.

• Usually used for liquid solutes in another liquid

Dilution Equation

Equation used to prepare a diluted solution from a stock solution:

M1V1=M2V2

Dilution Equation

Working Solution

The concentration of the solution you will be using for your experiment

Working Solution

The original solution you will be using for your experiment

1 Reaction

1 full reaction of substrate, enzyme, buffer, cofactor, etc.
A lot of kits use this term
Half-reaction: Scale it down to half

The Notation 1X

The working solution of a reagent
10X,20X, 50X is a concentrated version of the same reagent

Enzyme Unit

is a standard measure of enzyme activity, not mass.