So I decided that the photography for today’s challenge was actually taken at work earlier today. We had our yearly maintenance done on the DNA sequencer and there was one little issue that was discovered:

There seems to be some crystallized polymer on the array

So we knew that the array was having some issues, but they were issues that we could (and will continue) working around. When the door to the array was opened, it turns out that two of the little capillaries are broke and are leaking polymer every time I run the machine. This blob is about a year’s build up of polymer.

The 3730 Sequencer

This is what the machine looks like. This is the toy that I get to play with on a daily basis, running Sanger DNA sequencing for the university and off campus customers.

If I’m still in the position next year, I will get to see the array get replaced, and I may even check on the stage of the polymer blob formation over the next couple of months as well.