lablife.video

Are you part of a community? 🙋‍♂️🤸‍♀️👩‍🦼‍👀

Being part of a community can be so annoying. We are not free to do as we wish 😕. We have to be considerate of other people 😕, or even worse, their schedules 😕!

No freedom. No creativity. Just rules. 😕😕😕

Then why did the concept of a community survive for such a long time in human evolution? 🦍🤔

Well.

🌠 Maybe because it works and has proven its worth.
🌠 Maybe because the benefits outweigh the restrains.
🌠 Maybe because communities create synergy. Together, we achieve things that none of us could achieve alone.

Few places in science depend on community as much as the cell culture lab. 🔬 You are not the only person who will benefit from your own knowledge and practice of aseptic technique. Others will, too. But you will also benefit from good practices of others. ☝

The cell culture lab can be an inspiring, protective and fun community, when everyone contributes to it. 😊
The community we work in is the community we create.
It is our choice. 🤷‍♀️🌺

How We Created 96 .video Storyboards 🤦🏻♀️

It felt right 👍. But were we right 😳?

Cell culture technique cannot be googled. What you find, most of the time, does not correspond to any decent guideline ❌❌❌.

❓ We decided to ask people who are actually affected: students, technicians, and anyone who wants to do it right.
“How should video tutorials for cell culture technique look like?”

The answers were remarkably similar: clear content, good lighting, good sound, short and concise. Fine with us 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️.

❓ We asked students: “What are your biggest concerns in the cell culture lab?”
❓ We asked technicians: “Where do trainees need the most support?”

We started our research, combined it with our own knowledge, and developed 96 storyboards, packed with fundamentals – nothing fancy, but absolutely solid and according to GCCP. (Fast forward to the future: Even experienced people find helpful new information in lablife videos!)

96 storyboards meant that the logistics had to run smoothly. First stop: scene planning at the kitchen table.

At this point, we knew: This was just the beginning 🛸.

🔬 Zellkultur sicher & praxisnah beherrschen – Fast ausgebucht! 🔬

Sie arbeiten im biomedizinischen, medizinischen oder naturwissenschaftlichen Umfeld und möchten Ihre Zellkultur endlich reproduzierbar, sicher und auf Top-Niveau beherrschen?
Dann ist dieser Workshop Ihre Gelegenheit, Theorie und Praxis wirklich zu verknüpfen.

📅 15.–16. Oktober 2026
📍 FH Wiener Neustadt
🎓 34 CPD-Punkte (14 vorbereitend + 20 Praxis)

🤝 In Kooperation mit lablife.video
Der Workshop kombiniert strukturierte Online-Hands-on-Videotutorials (inkl. Skriptum & Lernerfolgstest) mit einem intensiven Praxistraining im Zellkulturlabor.
Im Fokus: GCCP, steriles Arbeiten, präzises Pipettieren und der sichere Umgang mit Zelllinien im Alltag.

👨‍🏫 Gastgeber
Der Praxisteil findet in den modernen Laboren der Biomedizinischen Analytik an der statt – begleitet von Pekar, Studiengangsleiter.

✨ Was diesen Workshop besonders macht:
Sie arbeiten nicht nur zu – Sie arbeiten selbst.
Alle Teilnehmenden führen jeden Schritt eigenständig durch – für echte Routine, Sicherheit und nachhaltigen Lernerfolg.

👩‍🔬 Ihre Learnings:
• fundiertes, sofort anwendbares Zellkultur-Know-how
• intensives 1:1 Training an der sterilen Werkbank
• Passagieren, Mediumwechsel, Zellbeurteilung & Kontaminationsmanagement
• Arbeiten in Kleingruppen (4–6 Personen) für maximalen Output

⚠️ Schnell anmelden und den letzten Platz sichern!

👉 Jetzt sichern & Zellkultur qualitativ, effizient und fehlerfrei umsetzen:
https://biomed-austria.at/fortbildung/zellkultur-workshop-26161

Lab Etiquette – Part of the Experiment? 🧫👀


Every action in the cell culture lab affects the work of others. Here, lab manners are literally part of the experimental design, probably more so than in any other lab.

Bad manners are bad practices:
👎 “forgetting” Mr. Frosties in the – 80 °C freezer when they are urgently needed ➡️ seriously!
👎 “borrowing” other people’s reagents and media ➡️ colleagues may unknowingly end up with a contamination, or, even worse, with a cross-contamination
👎 ignoring booking times ➡️ messing up other people’s schedules
👎 not cleaning up after work ➡️ who exactly is supposed to clean up?

But cell culture labs are unforgiving environments:
👉 shared equipment, such as the sterile workbenches, incubators, water baths also means shared responsibilities
👉 contaminants spread quickly and invisibly
👉 effects of bad practices do not show immediately, but once they show, it is way too late

Lab etiquette is the cheapest, fastest and most effective way to promote smooth and relaxed workflows, reproducible results, less laboratory waste, effective use of resources, and an atmosphere of fun, trust and inspiration.
Any reason not to have impeccable manners in the lab 👀?

The Experiment Did Not Work – Another One Of “Those Days”? 🙄
No, it isn’t.

How often have you heard this, or even said it yourself?
👎 The experiment didn’t work AGAIN …
👎 Yeah, the results are completely random…
👎 No idea, it worked great last week…

It seems to be part of our everyday lab life, to sigh and accept that experiments oftentimes do not work, simply because it is their nature to fail again and again 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️.
But is that really the case? Are we simply at the mercy of chance when it comes to experiments?
No. ❌

There are three main causes for failed experiments:
👉 Students are expected to be experts in lab work.
👉 Yet they are rarely explicitly trained in hands-on laboratory work through one-on-one guidance.
👉 Poor training produces predictable patterns of failure.

The students are not to blame, and failed experiments are not a coincidence. They are systemic failures.
Can we really afford such waste in the life sciences just because of lack of adequate training? 👀
👉😖 And aren’t we depriving our students of the opportunity to learn things properly, instead of expecting them to already know them?

If we expect excellence, we must invest in training. Failure isn’t fate, it is designed. 🖋

How often do we stop to think about this? 🤔💫



Most days, we are focused on projects, meetings, and deadlines. It doesn’t happen often that we are reminded that we spend our entire lives on a tilted, rotating planet orbiting a star 💫🌞🌍💫.



The summer solstice is one of those rare occasions when our perspective briefly shifts, and we are reminded of our place in the universe ✨🪐🌙.



In the Northern Hemisphere, daylight has reached its annual maximum 🌻. Tonight will be the shortest night of the year. From now on, the days will gradually begin to shorten again. And although, judging by the current temperatures, it may be hard to imagine, this is already a distant hint of the coming winter ☃️❄️.



Science gives us the ability to understand this. Reproducibility gives us confidence that our understanding is correct 😊.



We can predict events like this year after year, century after century, even millennium after millennium.

If that ability isn’t a superpower, what is?

🚀🚀🚀

Tissue Regeneration at its best: This was the Cluster Meeting 2026 at 🎉🎉🎉

The fun part of being a researcher is to attend meetings, where so many disciplines come together. Solid-state physics, mitochondria, organic chemistry, immunology, fluid dynamics, nano-technology … [the list goes on, almost indefinitely]. 🧬🤝🧪

All of these fields converge in one remarkable area of research: tissue engineering 🚀. The depth and diversity of expertise required to bring together knowledge from so many disciplines is quite extraordinary! Just imagine the number of highly skilled researchers working behind the scenes to make progress in this field possible 🛸.

That’s exactly where .video fits in. Solid skills – solid results. Simple as that. 🤷🏻‍♀️

It was wonderful to meet so many like-minded people and have a chat! On top of that, we received some incredible feedback on the .video programme.
Thank you so much! It really means the world to us 😍!

🦠🧫🦠 Recurring Contaminations –
Bad Luck or Bad Fate? 👍⚖️👎

“We had to trash everything and start from scratch!” 😩
A sentence, we hear far too often in cell culture labs. 😑

It’s neither bad luck nor bad fate, oftentimes it is simply 👉bad practice. Most contaminations – even if they are not recurrent – are the result of bad practice or a lack of knowledge. 🤷🏻‍♀️

❌ inappropriate pipetting techniques
❌ shared equipment and reagents
❌ cross-facility equipment use
❌ insufficient laboratory training
all contribute to the occurrence of contaminations.

At some point, we need to 🛑 stop debating the time and cost of training and 📊 start calculating the cost of not training. 👈👀☝️

Meet us at the Cluster Meeting 2026 at TU Wien!

👉 Why is this year’s meeting so special? ✨



For 20 years, the has brought together experts and enthusiasts in cell biology, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine, united by a shared vision: combining knowledge, experience, and innovation to improve patient’s quality of life, while continuing to advance fundamental research 🧬🧪🔬.

What began with Heinz Redl’s visionary idea 🛸 to join forces has grown into:

✨ 20 years of Austrian

✨ 20 years of expanding and

✨ 20 years of shared scientific successes

👉 Join us at the Cluster Meeting 2026 on May 21 and 22 2026 to celebrate two decades of collaboration, discovery, and progress.

We look forward to seeing you at ! 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏻‍♀️

Surprise! Almost A New Acquaintance 🙋🏻♂️🙋🏻♀️🙋🏻♀️

One day, Adelheid Weidinger () and I told about our concerns about current lab practices, and the alarming lack of knowledge. 😳
Ian was thrilled when we presented our idea of producing video tutorials for the cell culture lab 📽️🔬🧬🧪.

His feedback on our storyboards and videos definitely shaped the development of . But even more important was his enthusiasm and unwavering belief in our idea 🫲😊🫱.

☝️ Ian has spent the past few years deeply immersed in the natural sciences as he’s been developing a graphic novel on the history of science 👉📖💡.

We spent hours discussing astronomy 🪐🔭, philosophy 👴🏻, physics 🫧 and biology 🦖, lab practices ⚗️, and ultimately, learning and cognitive processes 🧠.
It reminds us of our (ian’s and Asmita’s) childhood, where science was always part of our home and Einstein’s theory of relativity and the speed of light were favourite topics at dinner 💫🍽️💫.

But now, with and Ian’s graphic novel, we got to know each other for the first time in a scientific work environment!

I have to say, it’s exciting and a completely new experience! 😍😍😍