The transition phase: preparing to launch a laboratory

Abstract

The process of starting a laboratory varies between institutions. However, there are universal tasks all investigators will need to evaluate when launching their laboratories. In this piece, we provide a brief summary of considerations for incoming groups leaders to centralize this information for the scientific community.

Introduction

The manifold considerations that go into establishing a lab can be esoteric and overwhelming. In this article, we describe specific tasks that can be completed before your start date or upon arrival. We have chosen to focus on group leaders at research intensive (R1) universities in biomedical research in the United States. While we recognize these guidelines are not exhaustive and will ultimately be different for every group, our goal is to provide a framework that can be used by incoming group leaders to orient themselves during the transition process. While other excellent resources exist that describe guidelines for setting up a laboratory [1], we aim to debrief this information from the standpoint of newly hired faculty members. We detail specific action items that rising faculty can undertake and consider during their transition to their new positions as group leaders.

Before you arrive:

While you may not have significant time to prepare for the transition to faculty member, prioritizing certain tasks can save months of time upon arrival (Figure 1 and Table 1). First, we recommend obtaining a non-employee affiliation with your new institution to allow you to complete tasks that require login access or an institutional email address. With your institutional affiliation, you may be able to complete trainings on safety, ethics, and sexual harassment prevention ahead of time. Importantly, you can create and submit applications to the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) for those working with vertebrate animals, and/or Institutional Review Board (IRB) for studies with human subjects. These applications require specific experimental details and can take weeks to draft and several months and rounds of revisions before approval. Similarly, creating a chemical inventory, compiling relevant information on hazardous chemicals, and submitting radiation safety applications (which can take 6+ months to be approved due to comprehensive background checks) can also be done before formally starting your position. By completing these tasks ahead of your start date, you will accelerate the time to the first experiment.

Figure 1: Suggested timeline for critical tasks for incoming group leaders.

At top, we depict an idealized timeline for initiating and completing key tasks necessary for setting up a laboratory. Below, we highlight important action items that incoming/new group leaders can use to guide their transition phase and initial period of group leadership. At right, legend categorizing each task type using colors.

Table 1.

Transition action items and corresponding resources/considerations.

Action item	Resources and considerations
Administrative
Obtain an institutional email and/or electronic credentials	Contact department administrator and/or Information Technology.
Obtain an organizational (“org”) chart to identify relevant contacts	Ask your department administrator.
Get listed on your department’s faculty webpage	Link to your lab website.
Safety
Introduce yourself to relevant safety personnel; identify required forms	Find contacts on the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) website. Many EH&S sites have a new PI checklist for getting started that you can find by searching.
Submit Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) application	Contact institutional Biosafety Officer (EH&S) for instructions and clarification.
Submit Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocol application	Contact Institutional Review Office, Husbandry Operations Management team to discuss process, clarify any considerations, discuss procedures. If possible, request a copy of the protocol from a lab with similar interests.
Submit Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol application	Contact the campus IRB office.
Submit Material Transfer Agreements (MTA)	Contact MTA officer for your institution and any institution from which you need materials (including your current lab) such as transgenic mice, plasmids etc.).
Create chemical and carcinogen safety plans	Contact institutional Industrial Hygienist or Chemical Hygiene Officer (EH&S).
Complete radiation use authorization application	Contact institutional Radiation Safety Officer (EH&S).
Complete required trainings (biosafety, conflict of interest, sexual harassment prevention, etc.)	Contact department administrator for instructions.
Renovations
Contact renovation project manager to discuss requirements	What kind of special equipment will you have?
Obtain lab blueprints	Contact building/floor manager or administrators.
Create initial large equipment list according to the needs of your lab	Does your equipment have special power, gas, vacuum requirements?
Purchasing and supply management
Access your startup funds	Identify restrictions on spending prior to start date (e.g., can you only buy equipment and not consumables?)
Make a list of local sales representatives	Many companies give new PI startup discounts.
Contact sales representatives for major equipment.	Obtain quotes for items; ensure expiration date aligns with your purchasing timeline.
Identify shared departmental equipment	Send list of desired equipment to floor/building manager or administrators.
Identify other sources for gently used equipment and supplies	e.g., eBay, closing labs, auctions, institution surplus, NIH surplus, Copia Scientific
Identify preferred vendors for your institution	Does your department have access to a storeroom with reduced prices?
Obtain training on how to use institutional/departmental ordering system.	Discuss ordering system and training requirements with administrative staff.
Investigate shipping options for materials you will bring from your former institution	e.g., plasmids, mice
Set up an inventory management system for your lab	e.g., Quartzy, GenoFab
Determine how you and your department will track spending, how often reports are generated	e.g., Spendlab.org
Recruiting and hiring
Identify what kind of expertise you want to have in your lab initially	Do you want a research assistant to help you set up the lab? Do you want to have postdoctoral fellows? When will graduate students join?
Reach out to hiring personnel about different types of positions/classifications for staff; determine salary, benefit, fringe costs	Contact Human Relations directly to discuss recruitment and hiring procedures.
Post job advertisements for relevant positions	Advertise on social media, at conferences, on JobRXiv, and through your network.
Interact with affiliated graduate programs	Contact graduate program or graduate training leadership.
Determine if you want to be affiliated with other departments/graduate programs/centers at your institution to recruit graduate students
Make a standardized interview question set for each type of position in your laboratory	e.g., a set of questions for postdoctoral candidates, rotation students, research technicians, undergraduate students, and staff scientists; consider designing questions for screener interviews or phone interviews and for full interviews
Lab promotion
Make a lab website	Work with your institution to design and host a website, or design your own (e.g., with Wix, SquareSpace, GitHub, etc.).
Design a lab logo	Utilize Fiverr or 99design for professional graphic design.
Make a lab or professional Twitter account (if desired)
Update your professional headshot	Does your institution have requirements for this? Is there a headshot studio on-site?
Lab Management
Decide on a structure and frequency for your lab meeting	Will you join another lab’s meeting initially? What kind of presentations will your trainees give (e.g., full presentation, short updates, journal clubs)
Decide how frequently you will meet with your trainees and the structure of these meetings	How will you communicate expectations for these meetings?
Make a lab expectations document/lab manual to help with onboarding and set clear expectations for working in your lab
Read books about management	e.g., HHMI’s “Making the Right Moves”; “Lab Dynamics” by Carl Cohen & Suzanne Cohen; “At the Helm” by Kathy Barker; “The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You” by Julie Zhuo
Choose and set up a system for lab notebooks	Many labs use electronic lab notebook (ELN) software (e.g., Benchling, LabArchives, SciNote)
Choose and set up a system for plasmid/cell line/etc. management	e.g., StrainControl, LabSuit, Benchling Registry
Designate a space for intralab communication	e.g., Slack, Discord, Teams, email
Set up booking systems for major lab equipment	e.g., Google Calendar, Bookkit
Funding
Transfer transition awards or grants to new institution	e.g., R00, K01 awards
Identify your Sponsored Projects Office representative	What is the typical timeline for internal review prior to submission?
Identify early career awards in your field and eligibility requirements	You can apply for some awards before your official start date.
Familiarize yourself with common federal (NIH/NSF) funding mechanisms; ask colleagues for successful examples of grants	Understand the differences (preliminary data, length of research statement, goals, budget, effect on Early Stage Investigator status) between common funding mechanisms submitted by new PIs (NIH R01, R21, NIGMS R35/MIRA, DP2; NSF Standard vs. EAGER). Which NIH institute (and study section) will you submit to?
Mentoring and support
Identify who will be on your departmental mentoring committee	How often will the committee meet? What is their role?
Build a network of peers outside your department	Are there virtual spaces in your field (e.g., New PI Slack, institution-specific New PI groups) or groups you can join? If not already established, can you create one?
Take a lab management/leadership course	e.g., EMBO Lab Leadership course, Cold Spring Harbor Lab Leadership Course

Additionally, during the pandemic, there have been severe delays in supply chains, resulting in backordered supplies and equipment. We recommend creating an equipment list and contacting vendors about pricing and estimated lead times for important items. It is helpful to document the catalog numbers of items you use regularly in your current laboratory to facilitate future ordering. Making a list of major vendors, sales representatives, and relevant new PI discounts can save you time and money. You can request that your institution set up your startup purchasing account before your arrival so you can place orders for important equipment and backordered items before starting. You can also work with vendors to schedule deliveries after your arrival, if needed. Logistically, you will want to stay in close contact with whoever is assisting with your lab space to ensure that renovations are completed accurately and within the provided time frame. Towards this last point, identifying the right person with whom to discuss these operational tasks and preparations can be challenging when you are not “on the ground”. Request a list of the relevant staff (sometimes called an organizational chart) to help you identify the person most likely to be appropriate for each request. Anything outlined above can also be done upon arrival and this may be preferred by the group leader.

Consider other important tasks you can complete before arriving, including coordinating shipment of materials from your current institution (mice, plasmids), deciding on an inventory system (for reagents, strains, plasmids, etc.), trying out and selecting a lab notebook system, writing Standard Operating Procedures and frequent use protocols, and writing a lab manual (discussed in more detail below). Finally, if you plan to transfer any grants, we recommend connecting with the grants offices from both institutions to facilitate the closeout, relinquishment, and transfer of awards. This process can take a few months, so we recommend planning ahead. You may also be eligible to submit certain new faculty grants before you officially start your position, if you will have started your position at the time of award.

Beyond these tasks, it is important to note that recruiting lab personnel takes time. Ahead of your arrival, we suggest you work with your institution or independently to create a lab website. Curating your research vision and lab philosophy serves as a valuable recruitment tool. Departmental human resources staff can help you develop and post any positions you plan to fill. This involves writing the ad (what are the required skills for the person you need? When would you like this person to start?) to gathering information about salary, benefits, and funding opportunities for prospective lab members. Once your position has been advertised, you can develop a list of interview questions to guide your interactions with candidates. This will streamline the interview process and curb implicit bias during decision-making so you can hire individuals to help you soon after your start date.

Finally, consider investing in yourself and others. Your first-hand and recent experience from the job search (interview formats, the mechanics of the chalk talk and common questions) will allow you to give invaluable advice to the next group of postdoctoral researchers at your institution or in your network. You can also take this time to reflect on your values and goals before starting your new position.

Upon arrival:

A key goal for the early stages after arrival is to identify and build a support structure (Table 1). Your institution may assign you a faculty mentor or a mentoring committee, or you may choose to build one or supplement your assigned committee. These individuals can serve as a first point of contact for feedback on grants, papers, and mentoring, as well as provide candid feedback on your progress towards promotion. You may choose to write a grant soon after arrival, which can provide a concrete project on which to focus your initial conversations with your faculty mentor or to help you evaluate potential mentors. This will also allow you to familiarize yourself with the grant submission procedure at your new institution.

In addition to your assigned mentors, we recommend that you seek advice from other faculty in your department, particularly other recent hires. Much of the specific details about running a lab involves navigating idiosyncrasies of your local environment, and you do not need to rediscover these idiosyncrasies for yourself. Finally, one of the challenges of starting a new lab is that many of the people designated to help you, such as senior faculty in your department, are also ultimately responsible for evaluating you. We recommend that you seek to build a support network that is external to your local environment (e.g., department) with whom you can fully let down your guard and blow off steam. This may be a group of new investigators in other departments at your institution or nearby institutions, or you may build communities with other investigators in virtual spaces.

If your institution has a graduate program, recruiting graduate students may be high on your agenda. We recommend that you take every available opportunity to make yourself visible to graduate students, such as opportunities to present your research to students and social events coordinated by the graduate programs. For some research centers, you may need to establish your affiliation with another institution to be able to officially mentor graduate students or have your students apply for specific training grants. We recommend connecting with the relevant individuals in charge of graduate education to facilitate these affiliations.

Now is also a good time to establish work practices for yourself and your lab members. How will your lab members place orders? What are your expectations for keeping a lab notebook? How will you distribute lab responsibilities? We have found that writing a lab manual or expectations document can help you consider the policies you want to implement in your lab (do you want to lay out expectations of work hours and vacations? How do you want people to communicate with you?). A lab manual can also simplify the process of onboarding your recruits, avoid miscommunication, and assure equity within your lab.

You will also start to formulate schedules and structures for lab meetings. When your lab is small, you may find it helpful to have a joint group meeting with another lab with whom you have overlapping scientific interests. Alternatively, you may use some of your early lab meetings to give “workshops” on information that you believe is key to help your lab members work rigorously and efficiently (for example, an overview of mouse genetics, or how to handle imaging data). In the age of Zoom, it is straightforward to record these workshops, so that new members can watch them at their convenience.

To close, some practical advice: buy a toolbox, box cutter, and laboratory cart right away. You’ll have a lot of new toys to open, assemble, and move around! Finally, be kind to yourself. This transition is both exhilarating and challenging and will upend even the best laid plans at times. Trust the people who hired you and the mentors who have supported you – they know you can do this!