Comments on: A Proverbial Fork in the Road http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/05/20/a-proverbial-fork-in-the-road/ A Chat and Waffles Chemistry Blog Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:45:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Chemistry Newsbytes at C&ENtral Science http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/05/20/a-proverbial-fork-in-the-road/#comment-1217 Chemistry Newsbytes at C&ENtral Science Fri, 23 May 2008 14:39:42 +0000 http://www.chemistry-blog.com/?p=251#comment-1217 [...] Frugality in the lab: a waste of time or a veritable challenge? Chemistry Blog [...] [...] Frugality in the lab: a waste of time or a veritable challenge? Chemistry Blog [...]

]]> By: Taitauwai http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/05/20/a-proverbial-fork-in-the-road/#comment-1109 Taitauwai Wed, 21 May 2008 23:53:29 +0000 http://www.chemistry-blog.com/?p=251#comment-1109 Over here the situation's quite similar. Boss's piggy bank will dry up in September. 2nd installment of the promised $$ has not arrive. My labmate will be working w/o pay ... poor guy. On the buying/making reagent, boss is very generous. Lucky us. But, though we have the financial freedom (sometime), it is hard for us to get the reagent into the country. Acetic anhydride takes ~2months to arrive. Why? Lot's of red tapes, forms, permits, regulation.... Generally, our stuff will be able to arrive within 1 month or so. Hence, boss like to stock up. Unfortunate for us, there is only 2 synthesis group in my place. Kinda hard to swap chemicals and reagents. So, as you mentioned, work is slow, $$ tree not bearing fruit, KPI not achieve, boss will have to defend our $$ in the commitee meeting. Yeah... it's the same senario. So, bottomline, if we can buy it, we will buy it to save time. If we can't, we improvise. Over here the situation’s quite similar. Boss’s piggy bank will dry up in September. 2nd installment of the promised has not arrive. My labmate will be working w/o pay ... poor guy. On the buying/making reagent, boss is very generous. Lucky us. But, though we have the financial freedom (sometime), it is hard for us to get the reagent into the country. Acetic anhydride takes ~2months to arrive. Why? Lot's of red tapes, forms, permits, regulation.... Generally, our stuff will be able to arrive within 1 month or so. Hence, boss like to stock up. Unfortunate for us, there is only 2 synthesis group in my place. Kinda hard to swap chemicals and reagents. So, as you mentioned, work is slow, tree not bearing fruit, KPI not achieve, boss will have to defend our $$ in the commitee meeting. Yeah… it’s the same senario.
So, bottomline, if we can buy it, we will buy it to save time. If we can’t, we improvise.

]]> By: J http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/05/20/a-proverbial-fork-in-the-road/#comment-1070 J Wed, 21 May 2008 13:33:28 +0000 http://www.chemistry-blog.com/?p=251#comment-1070 Our labs are not too dissimilar, with respect to allocation of funds; we won't be able to access any additional money until August. I wonder if that's a common trait among all research groups. We (my labmates and I) debate this issue at length on a monthly basis. Historically, the time factor rears its ugly head until it's too late and we can't buy any more chemicals/test tubes/septa for 2 months. I had hoped to come across a paper/reference (preferably unbiased) about "make it or buy it." A metric would be most beneficial. Our labs are not too dissimilar, with respect to allocation of funds; we won’t be able to access any additional money until August. I wonder if that’s a common trait among all research groups.

We (my labmates and I) debate this issue at length on a monthly basis. Historically, the time factor rears its ugly head until it’s too late and we can’t buy any more chemicals/test tubes/septa for 2 months.

I had hoped to come across a paper/reference (preferably unbiased) about “make it or buy it.” A metric would be most beneficial.

]]> By: Enahs http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2008/05/20/a-proverbial-fork-in-the-road/#comment-1023 Enahs Tue, 20 May 2008 23:35:58 +0000 http://www.chemistry-blog.com/?p=251#comment-1023 Money is always a controlling factor. Just today in lab I used ~$1,200 (US) worth of reagents and non reusable materials, no lie. To save money (and be less wasteful in general) we do low reaction volumes. We setup everything at low volume and high throughput. A typical reaction will be at most 75 microliters. And I am painfully aware of the budget and watch it. While my PI has the funding (and has for a while), because of a state agency issue, they are not releasing the money for another month. I will be working ~6 weeks with no pay, and he will back pay me. We make as much as we reasonably can. And because we can not afford to just buy everything, sometimes we make stuff we do not need, and trade it with other labs that have what we need but can not make what we can. All that said. This is science. Science comes first. So what if you can make everything. Can you make it consistently? Will different people be rotating in and out of the lab? Will they make it exactly the same as you? How is this going to effect your data you compare from different weeks? If you make it and there is 1% impurity, will it matter? Is that 1% impurity going to cost your entire experiment and waste your other reagents? Is it worth ruining your entire experiment over months to years of work to save a little money (and thus waste all the money that went into the other parts)? Reproducible and consistent data must take priority over cost and amount of research done. However that is best achieved is what you should do. Also: Not all bought stuff is perfect; I have had bad bought reagents before. But, they are typically very reliable, and have a nice guarantee. One experiment was not working, and I traced it back to a bad newly bought reagent (always record LOT numbers!). They paid for the cost of all the other reagents wasted because of there bad reagent. And just because it is cheaper to make reagents then buy them, is the time it cost to make them also cheaper in the end? Money is always a controlling factor. Just today in lab I used ~$1,200 (US) worth of reagents and non reusable materials, no lie.

To save money (and be less wasteful in general) we do low reaction volumes. We setup everything at low volume and high throughput. A typical reaction will be at most 75 microliters.

And I am painfully aware of the budget and watch it. While my PI has the funding (and has for a while), because of a state agency issue, they are not releasing the money for another month. I will be working ~6 weeks with no pay, and he will back pay me.

We make as much as we reasonably can. And because we can not afford to just buy everything, sometimes we make stuff we do not need, and trade it with other labs that have what we need but can not make what we can.

All that said. This is science. Science comes first.

So what if you can make everything. Can you make it consistently? Will different people be rotating in and out of the lab? Will they make it exactly the same as you? How is this going to effect your data you compare from different weeks? If you make it and there is 1% impurity, will it matter? Is that 1% impurity going to cost your entire experiment and waste your other reagents? Is it worth ruining your entire experiment over months to years of work to save a little money (and thus waste all the money that went into the other parts)?

Reproducible and consistent data must take priority over cost and amount of research done. However that is best achieved is what you should do.

Also:
Not all bought stuff is perfect; I have had bad bought reagents before. But, they are typically very reliable, and have a nice guarantee. One experiment was not working, and I traced it back to a bad newly bought reagent (always record LOT numbers!). They paid for the cost of all the other reagents wasted because of there bad reagent.

And just because it is cheaper to make reagents then buy them, is the time it cost to make them also cheaper in the end?

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