Toothpicks for PCR

["Alexander Kraev" bckraev at aeolus.ethz.ch]

Dear netters,
I saw Paul's long post about toothpicks and decided to finally confide
that I have never never thought of using such stuff for picking colonies.
Instead, I always used METAL NEEDLES, bought in local do-it-yourself stores.
The local shop sells them at SFr 3.50 for 100. Moreover, they can be REUSED!
During colony picking, drop them into 1% Deconex, store at least 30', wash
with a stream of water, rinse in EtOH and dry. Mine are reused about 15 times
before somebody forgets them in Deconex over weekend and they get rusty.
Not once any cross contamination has been observed, and the success rate is
nearly 100%. So, forget about toothpicks and switch to high-tech stuff, the
Metal Needles! Cheers,
*************************************************************************
Alexander Kraev, Ph.D.                 Internet: bckraev at aeolus.ethz.ch
Lab. of Biochemistry III               Phone: 0041-1-632-31-47
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology  FAX:   0041-1-632-12-13
Universitaetstr.16
CH-8092 Zurich
"Some ideas are obscure not because they are complex, but because they 
 are excluded from our circle of comprehension" - Kozma Prutkov