How to handle antibiotics in the laboratory?

1. Weighing Antibiotics

You need to weigh your antibiotics to achieve the concentration you need for your assy. A too high or too low concentration of your antibiotic stock could kill your selected cells or there is a low selection pressure so that other bacteria can grow. It is also important to wear gloves to prevent contact with the antibiotic.

2. How to properly store your antibiotics?

When you prepared your antibiotic stock, you should store it under freezing conditions, so light, heat and moisture will not damage your antibiotic.

3. How do you use antibiotics?

If you want to add an antibiotic to your media or to your agar for your agar plates, you should always work sterile. So, you should use a workbench or a Bunsen Brenner for a sterile environment. You should also label the bottles and plates with the antibiotic you used.

4. How to dispose antibiotics?

You should never discard your antibiotics or media with antibiotics in the sink. You should dispose the antibiotic in the autoclave or brought to the chemical waste depending on type of antibiotics.

Furthermore, we constructed a flyer giving an overview of different B. licheniformis strains and their usage in industry.