4 replies to this topic

[LabWhiz]

I'm fairly new to my lab, so I'm not that familiar with all of the common safety rules here. Earlier this morning I went to print out a picture of an invitrogen E-gel run from last week when one of the lab techs came up to me and mentioned that I might want to put on a pair of gloves when using the computer that's connected to the camera. Reason being is that it's frequently used for ethidium bromide gel work. Unfortunately for myself, by the time she mentioned this to me I'd already used the mouse and keyboard bare-handed. So my question is, is there a significant risk of absorbing what would probably be trace amounts of EtBr through my skin by handling that mouse & keyboard? Anything I should be particulary worried about from this occurance? Needless to say I kinda freaked out when I was told that Ethidium Bromide is mutagenic.

Thanks in advance!

[Dr Teeth]

LabWhiz, on Apr 13 2009, 02:14 PM, said:

I'm fairly new to my lab, so I'm not that familiar with all of the common safety rules here. Earlier this morning I went to print out a picture of an invitrogen E-gel run from last week when one of the lab techs came up to me and mentioned that I might want to put on a pair of gloves when using the computer that's connected to the camera. Reason being is that it's frequently used for ethidium bromide gel work. Unfortunately for myself, by the time she mentioned this to me I'd already used the mouse and keyboard bare-handed. So my question is, is there a significant risk of absorbing what would probably be trace amounts of EtBr through my skin by handling that mouse & keyboard? Anything I should be particulary worried about from this occurance? Needless to say I kinda freaked out when I was told that Ethidium Bromide is mutagenic.

Thanks in advance!

This has been covered many times.  Do a search above and you can find a variety of refs. showing that etbr is not as toxic as most people believe.  You will be fine.

[hanming86]

Dr Teeth, on Apr 13 2009, 12:05 PM, said:

LabWhiz, on Apr 13 2009, 02:14 PM, said:

I'm fairly new to my lab, so I'm not that familiar with all of the common safety rules here. Earlier this morning I went to print out a picture of an invitrogen E-gel run from last week when one of the lab techs came up to me and mentioned that I might want to put on a pair of gloves when using the computer that's connected to the camera. Reason being is that it's frequently used for ethidium bromide gel work. Unfortunately for myself, by the time she mentioned this to me I'd already used the mouse and keyboard bare-handed. So my question is, is there a significant risk of absorbing what would probably be trace amounts of EtBr through my skin by handling that mouse & keyboard? Anything I should be particulary worried about from this occurance? Needless to say I kinda freaked out when I was told that Ethidium Bromide is mutagenic.

Thanks in advance!

This has been covered many times.  Do a search above and you can find a variety of refs. showing that etbr is not as toxic as most people believe.  You will be fine.

it got kinda degraded upon exposure to light or some oxidizer.

[little mouse]

LabWhiz, on Apr 13 2009, 08:14 PM, said:

I'm fairly new to my lab, so I'm not that familiar with all of the common safety rules here. Earlier this morning I went to print out a picture of an invitrogen E-gel run from last week when one of the lab techs came up to me and mentioned that I might want to put on a pair of gloves when using the computer that's connected to the camera. Reason being is that it's frequently used for ethidium bromide gel work. Unfortunately for myself, by the time she mentioned this to me I'd already used the mouse and keyboard bare-handed. So my question is, is there a significant risk of absorbing what would probably be trace amounts of EtBr through my skin by handling that mouse & keyboard? Anything I should be particulary worried about from this occurance? Needless to say I kinda freaked out when I was told that Ethidium Bromide is mutagenic.

Thanks in advance!

such little contamination is not dangerous.
If you want to be safe, wear gloves. But please, wear clean gloves, not to contaminate the one who is not using gloves

[jiajia1987]

you might wanna wear nitrile gloves instead of the usual latex gloves.