Genetics Lab Kit

We prepare these kits and ship them to students at the start of the semester. When students are done, they ship back the kits and the DNA that has been prepared for sequencing.

Teaching Assistants aliquot the reagents, packs the kits and ships them Fedex overnight.  Items that need to be kept cold are packed in small coolers with ice packs.

Before shipping, be sure to email students and get confirmation that they will be home to receive the kit and put enzymes in the freezer. 

Shipping cost us ~$80 each direction, but some students can pick up the kit in person.

I received a number of small internal grants to purchase equipment. We charge a lab fee of $215 to cover shipping, consumables and the cost of sequencing. This is $100 more than the face to face lab fee.

The equipment is expensive, so it is critical that it all be returned.

To encourage kit return

• I email students a pre-paid shipping return label

• I instruct students to return their DNA library for sequencing in the same box as the kit. So if they dodn't return the kit, their sample won't get sequenced.

• The university Registrar puts a Hold on the student's account if they don't return the kit. A hold will prevent them from getting their transcripts and registering for classes

• Check with your Bursar to see if you can have them charge for unreturned kits

• Have students fill out a contract saying that they will return equipment in good condition by a certain date

  • this is just a multiple choice quiz on Canvas

After kits are received, my Teaching Assistants inventory each kit to make sure everything was returned and contacts students if anything is missing.

Tip: Before shipping the kits, label all kit contents with your university name and your email to increase the chance that everything gets returned. I also recommend removing any items that they won't use (like the tool for calibrating pipettes, and extra centrifuge rotors). If you want them to put the right power cords and accessories in the right boxes, you might want to label those (ie label the centrifuge power cord "centrifuge"). Students mostly left that kind of thing loose at the bottom of the shipping box, probably because they didn't know which equipment it went with.