Well, for me it began with DNA cloning into a plasmid (PCR, DNA gels, restriction enzymes, etc), transforming bacteria, selecting with antibiotic, colony PCR, confirming DNA sequences, producing a virus, infecting a cell line with said virus, immunoprecipitation using beads, western blot....
The only similar thing I did in bio lab was micro-pipetting, and I think I did a DNA gel once. So yeah, it was mostly true for me. 🙂
My experience is very similar to that. To summarize:
Biochemistry/Molecular Biology
-PCR Prep/PCR
-Making Gels (for gel electrophoresis)
-Running Gels
-Analyzing Gels
-Extraction from Gels, purification of product, imaging
-Restriction Digest
-Ligation
-Western Blots
-Using computer programs to create cloning strategies
-Lysing cells to collect their DNA, these are called minipreps, midipreps, maxipreps, etc..
Tissue Culture/Cell Work
-Cell passaging (in our lab we refer to it as cell splitting)
-Bacterial transformation
-Transfection
-Transduction
-Cell freezing
-Thinking up and making cell co-culture experiments
-Cell counting
Animal Work
-Anesthesia
-Taking out surgical clippings
-Retro-orbital injections
-Tail vein injections
-IP injections
-Penile vein injections
-Imaging of animals
General laboratory housekeeping
-Unpacking boxes with supplies
-Getting rid of cell waste
-Getting rid of biological/chemical trash
-Ordering and organizing cell media
-Learning how to use core facilities
-Autoclave
-Make new antibiotic agar plates, etc..
Non-technical, SCIENTIFIC work
-Reading papers. Lots and lots of papers.
-Outlining papers.
--Discussing papers.
-Thinking of cloning strategies.
-Thinking of cellular experiments.
-Keeping a GOOD laboratory notebook, writing out experiments/results/conclusions
-Attend weekly lab meetings
Those are some of the things that I did in lab. I know a lot of people who claim to have done "research" or who have worked alongside me (high school students) but expressed no interest in anything, slacked off, read random things on their phones, would occasionally do some "manual" technical work like split cells. They get the benefit of diluting my work by claiming to have done "research" but I would NOT call that research at all.
This makes me wonder about how many people who claim to do "research" actually DO research.
Does coming to a lab 4 hours a week and helping run an assay constitute research? This is not a rhetorical question.
I struggle to "define" research. The lab techs in my lab who are magicians and experts with all the technical work don't consider themselves researchers. Sure they know how to troubleshoot a PCR problem or a Western problem, but they claim that because they are not mentally invested in the project, that they are merely doing remedial hand work - no different from cooking, cleaning, or assembling a desk by following a written protocol. Their "talent" or rather, expertise comes from years of experience and troubleshooting. This raises the question: someone who works say 40 hours a week in a lab (and not 4), all they do is help out with little projects by doing cell maintenance and running assays, are they still doing research?
