A survey undertaken by Nature¹ revealed 75% of repondents failed to be able to reproduce published other researchers published results and over 50% even failed to be able to replicate their own work!

This may be caused by various reasons such as the reluctance of the researcher to call the papers author for clarification. But a key factor may be down to pipetting errors and bad practice. Normally specific pipetting techniques are not included in peer reviewed papers as it is assumed to be part of a researchers skillset.

In a recent rapidmicrobiology podcast, liquid handling experts from Sartorius, Sandra Söderholm, an application scientist and Jennifer Labisch, who is currently working on a PhD in lentiviral vector downstream processing, we discover the difference between forward and reverse pipetting, how pipetting errors can be minimised and how researchers can get free online training via the Sartorius Pipetting Academy.

In the podcast, Sandra describes how the Sartorius Pipetting Academy works "it consists of nine different modules with modules ranging from teaching the basics of pipetting to someone that is totally new to pipetting, to specialized modules such as cell cultural lab work, for instance."

"So, anyone can attend. And I would recommend it even to professionals that have worked in the lab for a long time, because as a matter of fact, most experienced lab professionals, they have never attended a formal pipetting training. So, attendees, including myself with more than 15 years of experience in the wet lab, have said that they learned a lot from the Sartorius Pipetting Academy."

Get free ISO certified pipette training with Sartorius Pipetting Academy.

Reference:

1. 1,500 scientists lift the lid on reproducibility