Cell Sorting Procedures
The Cytometry (FACS) Laboratory is a WEHI service facility that exists for the sole purpose of supporting your research. To make best use of the facility, you should be familiar with our standard operating procedures.
1. Setup and decontamination time is included in your reserved time.
Whenever there is free time before your reservation, staff will try to set instrument configuration before your arrival. If you arrive for your 10:00 reservation and your operator is at tea (see point 2), it’s because the setup has already been done. When there is no free time before your arrival, please allow 15 minutes for setup when planning your sort experiment. If instrument decontamination is necessary, also allow 15 minutes at the end of but within your reserved time.
2. Staff must take a tea break at 10:00 and at 15:30, during which time sorting will be paused.
Staff are at the mercy of the schedule and can not choose their time for a tea break. For their health and safety, to avoid the effects of dehydration, staff must take a break. You can work with us to avoid a pause in your experiment by watching over the sorting while your operator rehydrates.
3. If an instrument failure or even an operator error affects or curtails your sort, it may not be possible to extend your sort time.
On days when the facility has a full complement of staff, lunchtimes can be staggered to allow one sort operation to proceed over lunch to make up for lost time, however we cannot steal time from the next person’s reservation. Of course you may negotiate with that person yourself. If it is convenient for a staff member to continue your sort after hours, it may be requested but that will not always be possible (see point 5). Of course, if a poor result is unequivocally due to instrument failure or staff error, a refund of the sorting charges may be negotiated with Frank Battye.
4. If an instrument fails irretrievably or if the staff member allocated to it is absent due to illness, your sort may need to be cancelled completely.
We will always try to shuffle operations to reallocate your experiment to another sorter but, in times of heavy usage, this may not be possible. While we will never steal time from another user’s reservation, you may negotiate with other booked users for time swapping. Charges for the lost reservation will be waived. Again, see point 5.
5. User-supervision of an Aria sorter over lunch or after hours is allowed for users properly trained.
Staff are not always available to run sorters after hours. However, users may be trained to continue a sort operation that is initially set up by FACS facility staff. Of course, to protect the instrumentation, we can not allow this for untrained users. Since we hate to see any experiment fail through instrument malfunction, we strongly advise you to prepare for such eventualities by seeking training in advance. A few hours of instruction now may save a future important experiment from disaster.