A mobile, interdisciplinary facility for light microscopy, flow cytometry, and electron microscopy preparation
The Mobile Laboratories (ML) facility operates both off-campus and at the EMBL Heidelberg campus.
Off-site work (e.g. expeditions) are performed in collaboration with a partner, for a fee. Partners can be a single lab, a scientific consortium, or a research institute.
The requirement for a deployment off-campus is always centered around scientific questions.
The fees cover the costs of the staff, the maintenance of the machine, and the logistics. It does not cover consumables specific to your questions, nor follow-up or downstream analysis costs.
Deployment typically requires a ~6 months lead up time, to ensure the necessary logistics, permits and preparations can be done.
If you are interested in working with us, please do not hesitate to contact us via the contact form.
After initial contact, we require a short project description, which will be evaluated by a scientific committee. Following the positive evaluation, the planning of the deployment can begin.
When not in the field, the ML operates as a core facility at the Heidelberg campus.
New users should discuss their projects with the ML staff to identify the best strategies to answer their biological question. The facility and the staff do carry out deployments abroad, so do discuss the timeframe of your experiments as well in the light of the ongoing expeditions. If the work is to be carried out autonomously by the user, a thorough introduction of the machines will be given to the user.
Before starting the work in the AML, an introduction to the facility, the machines and how waste is disposed is compulsory. If you cannot remember how to operate the machines, please ask the staff for advice. Please note: If you have not used the facility or the equipment for six months after your initial training, a refresh session is needed before further use.
The working environment in the AML is S1.
We charge an hourly fee for our machines as a contribution to our maintenance and consumable costs. You can find the internal hourly fees @PPMS. For External academic or industry rates, please inquire at mobile.labs (at) embl.de
When you publish work supported by the Mobile Laboratories, it is obligatory to include the following statement in the acknowledgement:
“We thank the Mobile Lab Facility of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory for their support.”
Moreover if staff members contribute significantly to the published work, and it’s in accordance with EMBL IP rule #63, staff members shall be included in the author list.
Booking of the instruments before use is obligatory. All booking is done via PPMS.
You are responsible for the system while you are booked.
Delete your booking if you do not use your slot.
If you are the last user of the day, or delete the last session of the day, ensure that the machine is switched off.
Move your data immediately to your group server.
In case of local storage shortage, ML staff will delete any files older than 7 days.
Do not plug any USB-stick or hard-drive to any of the ML computers!
If you are an external visitor, bring an external hard drive. The ML staff will manage the data transfer to your harddrive before leaving. Average data sizes are 20 Gb for CLSM per day, 25 Gb for COPAS, and 0.5 GB per day for most other instruments. Inquire with the ML staff for estimates tailored to your planned research.
Please treat the equipment with extreme care.
Before use, do check the equipment for damage or problems, and tell a staff member immediately. Please submit an incident report in PPMS accordingly.
Work with dangerous goods can only be performed in the fume hood. You are required to clean up after yourself, ensure waste is properly disposed of and all chemicals are properly labeled and stored. If you are not sure, ask a ML staff member.
Access for internal users only