pcrman

Our lab was on the hinge of translational medicine even before this. We stand somewhere between basic research (eventhough we do some) and the applied clinical routine labs we cooperate with, they give us those twists, mysteries, things that need to be investigated further, and we alone were able to start with a simple mutation screening and if found something interesting, go deeper into functional studies on cell lines or mice. That's what I like about it, it's not that far from the actual patients, but it's still not routine boring diagnosis stuff. But we are pretty small lab, flexible, yes, but our possibilities are limited.

However we now have a brand new shiny huge translation medicine institute just across the street, and they have everything, NGS, animal facilities, drug screenng robots, core labs and other things I forgot, to study cancers mostly and identify new drug targets and already produce a substance that is not only potential drug, because pharma companies are not that interested in such, but doing already the first rounds of functional trials. The plan is that in that case pharma companies would be much more interested in investment and further developement. I think this is a bold plan but they have all that is needed (except for people, a bit) and they have chance to succeed.
And they have to, because the initial EU funding will dry out in few years and they have to make money to maintain all this. It's such a huge project that it will either be a massive success in local measures or it will sink down the whole university if it fails.

Instead of adding EtBr to the gel, soak the gel in an EtBr solution after the run, then destain in distilled water.

What tracking dye are you using?  Most tracking dyes are pH sensitive, so your "fading bands" might indicate a pH problem, which might further indicate a problem with your gel buffer.

You're not accidentally making your molten agarose with water, are you?