Ingenuity Drives Sustainable Science at the IDM

Innovation and sustainability often go hand in hand, and that’s exactly what happened when Dr Conchita Kamanzi faced a challenge during one of her lab’s large-scale experiments.

Conchita, a postdoctoral fellow in the Experimental Tuberculosis and Immunology Research Group led by IDM Member Professor Muazzam Jacobs, discovered that during intensive tissue processing days, one particular step created a significant bottleneck: homogenising.

This step involves breaking down tissue into a uniform mixture so that cells and molecules of interest, such as RNA, DNA, or proteins can be extracted and analysed. When multiple team members were collecting and preparing tissue samples, only one sample could be homogenised at a time, slowing down the entire workflow.

At the time, the team had just one homogeniser setup, a drill fitted with a specialised homogeniser head and a reusable glass collection tube. While bead-based mills were considered as an alternative, they came with high consumable costs and relied heavily on single-use plastic tubes, which conflicted with the group’s sustainability goals.

Determined to find a better solution, Conchita designed and built a new homogeniser stand from scratch, using recycled metal offcuts from her family’s workshop. The result was a second, fully functional setup that doubled the team’s sample preparation capacity.

“It is very important to me to try and incorporate sustainable practices in the design of our experiments. I’m glad that I could build a long-lasting tool that will enable us to improve our processing efficiency without generating extensive waste”, says Conchita.

This hands-on innovation not only improved efficiency in the lab but also eliminated the need for additional single-use plastics, embodying IDM’s vision of sustainable science.

Many assume that adopting environmentally sustainable practices is costly or time-consuming, but Conchita’s ingenuity proves otherwise. Sometimes, all it takes is a bit of out-of-the-box thinking and a simple, practical idea to make a big difference.