Where is your "Clean room"?

[conzopiriani]

Where do you reconstitute your research chemicals? Den, kitchen, bathroom(shudder), trailer out back? How sterile do you make/ keep it? Are your supplies in the same room ? I use a spare room that will soon house a guest for a month and am trying to figure out another option. Do share.

 

[SakeSan]

Office desk. “Clean” is just a state of mind.

 

[ZombieFoot]

Where do you reconstitute your research chemicals? Den, kitchen, bathroom(shudder), trailer out back? How sterile do you make/ keep it? Are your supplies in the same room ? I use a spare room that will soon house a guest for a month and am trying to figure out another option. Do share.

Empty nester. Took my son's old room as my dedicated peptide palace. Dorm fridge for reconstituted peps, his dresser is my supplies storage, and his baby fold-down changing table is the reconstitution lab.

 

[SakeSan]

Empty nester. Took my son's old room as my dedicated peptide palace. Dorm fridge for reconstituted peps, his dresser is my supplies storage, and his baby fold-down changing table is the reconstitution lab.

How poetic would it be if the magic of peps reconstituted on baby changing table accidentally led to another baby?

 

[desinr-gal]

I prep in this thing, in a spare room, I still think I lack optimal sterile techniques but I'm getting there, takes forever to reconstitute tho 😂

what is that?

 

[desinr-gal]

Also a kitchen table prepper, I spray Lysol in the air and let settle, also use a tray, gloves,
alcohol spray, wipes.. I try to recon several at a time to make all the effort worth it. I also filter
so the pile of waste is concerning.

 

[gothpeacock]

Kitchen table with a tray that’s been sanitized. My supplies all live in my closet.

 

[Bellybutton]

what is that?

I think it’s a fume hood (like for a lab)

 

[FireMoon]

I've been using my kitchen counters cuz I was too lazy to get my still air box out.

I use to grow shrooms from spores and created a lot of mycelium cultures. I used a makeshift still air box from a clear storage tub.

I'd put my UV lamp into it and let it sit in a spare room for ~ 30 mins, spray w/ alcohol, put the lid on, took to my prep area in the kitchen and flipped it, took the lid off and let about 1/3 overhang the edge of my desk so I could get my hands inside and work. This worked very well and none of my cultures were ever contaminated.

Currently it's storing all of my lab supplies from that endeavor, but planning to bring it all back to life for the new hobby 🤓🧪shit's gettin real again.

 

[FireMoon]

I prep in this thing, in a spare room, I still think I lack optimal sterile techniques but I'm getting there, takes forever to reconstitute tho 😂

Where do you source replacement filters?

 

[ZombieFoot]

How poetic would it be if the magic of peps reconstituted on baby changing table accidentally led to another baby?

Given my 20-year-old vasectomy, and my TRT shrinking the sperm-makers down to raisins, that would truly be a Christmas Miracle. 😛

 

[CandyCap]

I have a laminar flow hood for other hobbies. So just do all clean work in front of that.

 

[jjscientific]

As a former microbiologist, here's my take on sterile technique. Creating a completely sterile environment at home is difficult, but there are a few easy things you can do to minimize contamination.

tldr; turn off your HVAC, work in the loo

In greater detail:

1. Use sterile equipment. I mean, duh, your filters and syringes and vials are definitely going to be touching research products. So buy them sterile, use them once, and throw them away.

2. Work in a 'still air' environment. In the olden days of microbiology, it was common to work in 'still rooms' instead of HEPA-filtered clean rooms. These were basically glorified closets, with no air flow. You would just walk in, sit down quietly for 2 minutes without moving so that everything in the air had time to settle, then begin your work. Simply turning off your HVAC gets you closer to these conditions, and if you can find a small space with no air flow, so much the better.

3. Avoid spaces with lots of dust sources. So, while a 'glorified closet' might be a great space to create a still air environment, an actual closet with lots of sweaters above your workspace, and old dusty boxes, is probably not so great.

4. Wash your hands. I mean, actually, with proper technique this shouldn't matter, since your hands should never be touching anything which needs to remain sterile (vial stopper, needle, etc.). And germs can't jump, so they're not going to get onto your equipment without direct contact. But it's easy to do. So sure, go ahead and wash your hands.

5. Clean your surfaces. This one is really pretty far down on the list, tbh. Again, germs can't jump. It's easy, though, and a good way to kill time while you wait for the air to settle in your closet. So go ahead and give surfaces a wipe down with alcohol, or even just water to clear away the dust.

So what does this all mean? You should probably work in your bathroom! As long as you can turn off the airflow, it's a likely a nice small space with very little dust. You definitely don't want poo on your equipment, but nothing is gonna jump from the toilet to your workspace by the sink. So with a little bit of proper technique, this is probably the easiest place to quickly create a mostly-sterile-ish environment.