Strong contamination with ethidium bromide - (Jun/04/2007 )
But let us not forget the history of EtBr aka homidium. This compound was first developed in the 1950s as a drug to combat trypanosome, the bugs that causes sleaping sickness. Even today, in Africa EtBr remains the prefered drug to treat Trypanosomiasis in lifestock and pets. The drug is cheaps and rather effective.
So while we may worry, EtBr isn't that toxic. It can't penetrate uncut skin as the molecule is for the most part bulk nonpolar. So far ETBr might be mutagenic but it isn't teratogenic.
Don't lose sleep over it. EtBr is bad. But so is Copper II sulphate.
yesterday i was extracting DNA band from EtBr-CsCl gradient with a syringe. after finish my work when i was capping the syringe, it inserted into my finger and lots of blood comes out through my hands gloves.
i cant understand whether i injected some etbr in my finger or not
I still worry about my past contamination with etbr, especially because I think that I swallowed some. do you think that I have high chance to get a cancer if I ingested an amount of 100 microgramme? On what I can look to have clue? Is there a way to know how much I have ingested ?
100µG?????? how did you do that ? you were supposed to eat 10µl of concentrated stock solution...
your fingers should have been red !
i think you may overeact. 
ok i'm scared too, but put your fingers under uv light and see if they are fluorescent.
The rule : don't lick your fingers in the lab before strong wash should be known
your fingers should have been red !
i think you may overeact.
ok i'm scared too, but put your fingers under uv light and see if they are fluorescent.The rule : don't lick your fingers in the lab before strong wash should be known
Indeed, I washed (almost) each time I leaved the lab and somebody told me that I probably washed away all the non-absorbed by skin Etbr away so should I be reassure ? I did not wash thoroughly, just normal washing of 30 seconde(with soap), do you think it is enough ?
Now I am not scared by had put some on my finger, just about have swallowed some. So do you think that this short hand wash are enough ?
Who taught you to work in a lab? Something definately seems to be wrong with teaching people to work in a laboratory, where indeed you should each and every time wash your hands when leaving, where you should have been taught how to work with EtBr etc.
I believe washing of 30 seconds with soap is quite thorough for a normal wash. If you thoroughly rinse your hands after soap it should be sufficient I believe.
Actually, I have heard EtBr is mutagenic and carcinogenic, but I have looked for information about it without success.
Here is some information, but doesn’t say anything about mutagenic or carcinogenic risk for people:
It’s me again,
I’m writing the safety manual of my lab and as I mentioned, I have no information about mutagenic effect of EtBr. So, If someone has a Data sheet or a paper of EtBr mentioning it is mutagenic to human and what is the dose and if there is studies of it, please let me know.
Thanks in advantage! 
i believe the mutagenic studies were done on bacteria.
the msds from sigma includes mutagen data.