As some of you are aware I have been home for 2 weeks to support my family as my father had a surgery. Don’t want to go into much detail about the trip, but it was very mentally draining. So, I wasn’t really reading email properly or anything, don’t take me wrong I was checking them to make sure there is nothing important but I was not reading every single word in them. Anyway, while I was away I received an email from our lab manager regarding s broken -80C freezer, but it was the one that I don’t use, so I didn’t pay attention. The emails kept coming and there was something about cleaning the one that I am using. So, after I came back from home I went straight to see our lab manager to say that I keep my cells in there permanently. You might ask why I keep them in -80C. Yes, it’s a valid question, they should be in liquid nitrogen, however we don’t have any space and there is a chance that the tanks are not being properly looked after. Few times cells were dead even though people are experienced in cell culture, so it’s unlikely that they messed up. So, my co-supervisor suggested that I keep my cells in -80C permanently, so I designed my own box and put a huge sticker on it saying “Kates cells”. Also, just to remind we have transfected cells ourselves (made them glow in uv light) which took us a few months, plus my cells are very expensive. In addition to that, my vascularisation protocol has finally worked before I vent for holidays. Anyway, back to the topic, I asked our lab manager about “cleaning out the freezer” and she looks at me surprised and says “Kate the freezer broke down shortly after the first one and only cells that were in Mr Frosty (special containers to cool cells down) were moved to liquid nitrogen. Everything else was moved to -20C. Then it hit me, all my cells were in -20C for more than a week. I spend next two days trying to find my cells, also my other reagents were moved around so I couldn’t find anything. I managed to find the cells but they are dead. At this point I’m not stressing out anymore I just can’t be bothered. I spoke to my supervisors they are very angry at the situation. We had biomaterials group meeting where everyone who works in tissue engineering in our department comes, but no one even mentioned this problem. I wasted 3 months of my work and few thousand pounds, excluding my time and effort. Luckily just before I went home I froze down some cells, so a few vials were in Mr Frosty. I thawed them and the cells are half dead too, but I think they will survive, it will only take forever for them to grow properly (become confluent). The cells that survived are also quite old so even though it’s good that I have some, I lost around 80 vials of cells and many of them were very, very young. Anyway, I have to deal with this now.
At the moment, I am trying my best to finish a paper that we are publishing this month, I will do my best to finish it off tomorrow, as the deadline is at the end of the month. Also, I am going to Italy for 10 days on Friday, so I will update you on how it went. :) The morale of this story is, shit happens don’t get too stressed out about it, just try to find a solution. (I found a supplier of transfected cells, so will probably buy them once I’m back).