shirosands

Hi all,

I have a problem in my lab in that my PI does not wear gloves for tissue culture AND she trains all the BS and MS students in her lab (of which there are MANY) not to wear gloves either.  I've been working in biology since college and to me wearing gloves is not optional - I always wear gloves and and very careful with my sterile technique.  But now we have an upcoming Biosafety meeting for the department, which I feel is a complete farce before it begins, when she doesn't even have people wearing gloves.  For instance, some cancer cell lines are viral-transformed and may still emit viral particles and/or are BSL2.  I also don't like the students coming into the tissue culture hoods and not wearing gloves, therefore contaminating everything in the hood with their hands (mycoplasma and other contaminants).  

I need some information to confront the PI with to change this policy as I feel not wearing gloves is very bad, for many reasons.  

So I would like to know from other biologists, have you ever worked in a lab where you could do tissue culture without gloves?

And how would you react to seeing someone not wearing gloves while doing tissue culture?