Once the shell of your Protocol Template is set up it's time to populate it with all the actions needed to successfully complete your cell culture. First start with the Action Timeline.
Action Timeline
The action timeline is where you define the Protocol Start Day and begin creating the Actions for your Protocol Template.
Protocol Start Day
1. Enter a Protocol Start Day
This is the day of your earliest action in your Protocol Template.
It can be a negative number, zero or a positive number, depending on how you organize your workflows.
Examples: A Growth and Expansion Protocol Template may have a Protocol Start Day = 0 with a Thaw action. A Differentiation Protocol Template may have a Protocol Start Day = -4 moving and keeping PSCs in E8 Medium for four days and then switching to a Differentiation medium on days 0 thru 3. You could then add two actions: "FEED : E8 Medium : (4)-(1) and "FEED : Diff Medium A : 0-3".
Create Protocol Template Actions
2. Click the "Add Action" button to begin adding culture actions.
3. Click the drop down arrow under the Action Properties heading and choose the first Action in your Protocol Template (i.e., Thaw). An Action is a specific cell culture technique or method that you apply to cells. Choose the one that best applies from the following, Feed, Treat, Passage, Suspension Passage, Transfer, Harvest, Live Assay, Endpoint Assay, Thaw, Cryopreserve, Transfect (In Vessel), Pick-to-Remove, Isolate, Terminate, and No Action .
Note: Actions applied to cells within CultureTrax will either ‘continue’ them to the next day or ‘terminate’ them. It’s important to understand what will happen to the vessels/wells in a culture track when different types of Actions are applied. To learn more about Actions and how they continue or terminate cells, check out the CultureTrax Action Descriptions table.
4. Enter a Custom Name for your Action to help you identify it. This is an optional field, but can be helpful if you, for example, have multiple 'Feed' Actions that use different media within your Protocol Template. For such a case, adding custom Action names that describe the Media may be helpful (i.e., Essential 8, Neural Diff A, Neural Diff B, NSC Maintenance)
5. Define the timing of your Action as available on All days or Specific Days by selecting the appropriate radio button. For 'Specific Days' click on the 'Need Help?' link to reveal the tips below;
Enter a comma-delimited list of protocol days/ranges on which this action should be available.
Ranges of days are represented with a hyphen, e.g. 10-12 would represent days 10, 11, and 12.
Negative days should be represented in parentheses, e.g. -4 should be entered as (4).
Adding "+" makes that action available from that protocol day forward.