£999

This course has been approved by the Royal Society of Biology for the purposes of CPD, this course may be counted as 90 CPD points.

The Laboratory Skills and Microbiology course is designed and delivered by real scientists to provide science students with an opportunity to gain hands on experience using real laboratory equipment. The course supports university and work experience applications, as almost all universities and employers now require previous laboratory experience before considering an applicant.

The laboratory skills programme runs from 9:30am – 4pm for 5 consecutive days and provides practical laboratory-based training delivered by researchers from University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores, Pfizer, the University of Oxford and a range of researchers who teach as visiting lecturers on this program.

We teach at a very low student to tutor ratio (5:1) meaning that students are supervised and encouraged throughout their course. We ask students to design their own experiments and allow students to make (safe) mistakes and learn from these. We believe this helps students to develop independent research skills and gain confidence in their own ability in the laboratory. The scientists teaching during the course provide insights into their industry and areas of research, and students looking for further work experience will be directed to one of our partners or our recruitment consultants at SRG (with a reference if requested).

The course contents provide Undergraduate/postgraduate students who wish to freshen-up their skills and gain a better understanding of certain lab procedures before applying for further research studies or scientific posts are recommended to attend this course or any more advanced courses that BioGrad offers.

The laboratory skills-5 Days programme focused training and learning outcomes in the below areas:

Day 1 – Laboratory Induction:

• Laboratory Health and Safety including Risk Assessments and COSHH
• Pipetting
• Balances
• Molar equations
• pH meters
• Plate readers
• Data analysis including standard curves
• Laboratory notebook maintenance
• Laboratory maintenance

Day 2 – Nano-Toxicology

Students will use the skills they learned on day 1 to investigate the effect of toxic nanomaterials on lung macrophage cells.

Day 3 – Microbiology I

Students learn the aseptic technique, working with E-coli and B-subtilis to explore antimicrobial agents, perform gram stains and investigate bacteria in environmental samples.

Day 4 – Microbiology II and Immunology

During the morning session, students will analyse and discuss their microbiology results; students become more autonomous in their work, autoclaving their own media and biohazard waste, and troubleshooting their experimental designs. In the afternoon session, students will get an in-depth understanding of pathology and immunology and will process a set of clinical samples using ELISA as a diagnostic assay to diagnose patients with an infectious disease.

Day 5 – Career Development Workshop, Student Presentations and Certifications:

Career Development Workshop

Students will learn about the many internship and funding opportunities available to undergraduate science students. This will allow students to build on laboratory experience gained during this residential course and further their scientific careers.

Student Presentations

At the end of the course students will present one of their experiments to the rest of the group in a formal presentation session. The audience will be able to ask questions and provide an opportunity for students to show what they have learned during the course of the week.

Learning Outcomes:

During this 5-day course, students will learn transferable skills suitable for any laboratory work:

• Prepare and complete COSHH forms and risk assessment for any chemical independently.
• Make stock solutions and explain how they calculate the concentration to prepare the stocks.
• Use the balance to weigh chemicals and prepare serial dilutions.
• Use different types of pipettes safely, adjust and measure the pH of various stock solutions.
• Able to prepare dose-response curves (and their calculations).
• Measuring dose-response data using plate-based absorbance.
• Prepare different solutions of nanomaterials; synthetic and natural, and investigate different effects of physicochemical properties of size, charge, and chemistry on the toxicity of macrophages cell lines.
• Carry out the aseptic technique to prepare agar media and growing two types of bacteria; make lawn and streak plates as well.
• Identify the best antibiotic to resist the growth of bacteria and calculate the zone of inhibition.
• Perform and analyse ELISA results.
• Maintain accurate lab book notes.

Unlike other institutions, we do not attempt to ‘cram’ lots of different methods into a short course. This full day covers the basic skills of working in any research laboratory. These techniques are taught correctly and allow time for students to repeat each aspect multiple times. When students leave this course, they are confident in their ability to enter a UK laboratory and work in a safe manner using essential pieces of equipment.

Prerequisites 

• Students attending this course are expected to be studying a science undergraduate degree however recent postgraduates or students who have been out of the laboratory for some time often attend to ‘up-skill’ their CV. 
• No previous laboratory experience is required for this course as full introductions will be provided for each subject area.

Course Endpoint:

Attendees will gain valuable insights into the range of careers and laboratory research opportunities available. We have links with many companies that recruit interns and graduates based on our recommendations. On completion of the course, your new skills will be endorsed by our lecturers on LinkedIn and a reference can be provided upon request.

All our courses can be booked by paying a deposit and using a payment plan over 1,6 or 12 months if required. For more information please contact our Administration Team via email on: student.services@biograd.co.uk or through the contact form here.

Students attending any of our Level 4-6 and Level 7 courses must be confident and competent in a working laboratory. You must be able to walk in and start work selecting correct pipettes and tips, making molar solutions and serial dilutions to attend these courses. A questionnaire must be completed prior to commencement of your course to ensure you are able to meet these required competencies. If you do not yet possess the necessary skills, we recommend you attend one of our 1 day ‘Laboratory Skills’ courses prior to booking this course.

Our courses are under constant review to ensure they remain inline with current protocols within the NHS, research and industry. This means that course content may change.