Our Drosophila stocks and equipment
Drosophila stock collections
All main stocks (>5000 individual lines) of Drosophila melanogaster are housed within a 18C/70%RH controlled room with a remote wireless monitoring and alarm service. The individual lab stock collections are maintained by dedicated support staff. The majority of fly stocks are kept in triplicate and flies tipped onto new growth media every 2 weeks.
Technical staff also ensure all stocks are correctly labelled with both the stock number and genotype of each fly culture. Any flies that are obtained from sources outside the laboratory are quarantined before bringing them into the fly lab to make sure they are not carrying anything that could spread to other stocks.
Fly Food Recipe
The large-scale production of nutrient rich culture media is prepared in a specialist media maker on-site. This allows up to 60 litres per batch to be prepared twice weekly to the recipe below.
Technical support is provided for fly food preparation.
| Ingredient | Amount | Manufacturer | Supplier |
| Cold tap water | 1 Litre | ||
| Medium Cornmeal | 80g | Triple Lion | Lembas/Easton Enterprises |
| Dried Yeast | 18g | Kerry Ingredients | Regina |
| Soya Flour | 10g | buywholefoodsonline.co.uk | |
| Malt Extract | 80g | Rayner’s Essentials | Lembas |
| Molasses | 40g | Rayner’s Essentials | Lembas |
| Agar | 8g | Regina | |
10% Nipagin in Absolute Ethanol | 25ml | Merck/Fisher | Merck/Fisher |
| Propionic Acid | 4ml | Merck/Fisher | Merck/Fisher |
Equipment
A large temperature controlled main laboratory maintained at 18/19C houses 22 fly stations with dissection microscopes, each equipped with fly pads and piped CO2 for the temporary anaesthetisation of flies. This allows flies to be identified and sorted for experimental work.
Fly cultures for experimental work can be housed in a 25C/70%RH culture room with a remote wireless monitoring and alarm service. Additional incubators set at a variety of temperatures are also available for experimental work as needed.
An injection microscope is situated within the facility and available for fly researchers.
A water bath in available within the lab for general use and is maintained by the technical staff.
Consumables such as paintbrushes, labelling tape and light bulbs for microscopes are available from one of the fly lab technicians, for use in the main lab. Please ask a technician if you cannot find an item you require.