Some anxious experiences pushed me to invest time in documenting and consequently my work quality improved. So, I did some further tests and resolved the problem by redefining the detection range of the assay. I plotted all my results in a single graph and finally noticed that the assay was consistently generating precise and accurate results but in a different range of concentrations. Although I could not find any explanation after comparing different experiments and results, I suspected the assay could have an inherent problem. I dug through my lab notebook to see if I could find any reason for those failing experiments. I tested a wide range of analyte concentrations over several runs and noticed that the low concentrations of analytes generated acceptable results in some experiments but not in others. I was for instance recently troubleshooting a custom analytical assay that was occasionally generating inconsistent results. I have now had to learn the hard way that recording all parameters, settings, and raw results of all the experiments during the set-up process, is the best tool you have for troubleshooting when things go wrong, which they will do. I also had an urge to hide bad results thinking they could damage my reputation - even if they just sat in a notebook. Besides, I was confident I could remember the important details – even if I didn’t know what details were and weren’t important at the time. Once I got positive results, I would document them in detail, I used to think. I saw it a waste time to record details of failed experiments. In my early years of wet lab work, I often repeated experiments without properly documenting them. This was the case for me in my early years of wet lab experimentation, but with time I learned to manage my wet lab anxiety, and even started enjoying the work, especially the troubleshooting process. If you have worked in wet laboratories (also known as experimental labs), you have likely encountered similar issues, and sometimes a problem can make you anxious and even make you feel burned out. Then after some days, when I was biking to work, a random idea came to my mind that solved my dilemma with the unexpected noise. I felt burnt out and had to take a break. I tried all available solutions and read a lot on the Internet, but in vain. Desperate to get rid of it, I checked all my procedures, but they seemed to be correct and I previous experience in developing these kinds of assays. One weekend when I was working in the lab repeating optimization experiments for developing a strawberry pathogen detection assay, I was picking up noise in my data.
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