Lab Diary: Entry no.1

R&D software provider IDBS discusses the some of the top laboratory challenges experienced by scientists.

Working in a laboratory comes with unique challenges, regardless of your area of expertise or speciality.

In this blog series, we look at five common irritations experienced by scientists, and explore some potential solutions. Part one of this series looks at two of these complaints: working in clean rooms and the complications caused by hand-written notes.

1: Being forgetful whilst working in a clean room is the worst

The majority of scientific research requires working in a controlled environment. Scientists need essential tools and equipment and have to follow strict procedures to use them, which must be documented.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) outlines many guidelines and requirements for working in a laboratory and, depending on the nature of the substances used in research, scientists are likely to need to comply with a plethora of regulations. These range from having sufficient working space when using electrical equipment operating at <600 volts to constantly evaluating and communicating potential hazardous chemicals or equipment used in labs.

The Laboratory Standard requires the Chemical Hygiene Officer to have a written Chemical Hygiene Plan (CHP) to work safely in a clean room and identify and communicate the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) required.

Developing and maintaining these written communication programmes for the laboratory is a continuous process, crucial for any lab’s efficiency – and as the research evolves, so do the safety requirements. 

Smart labs will accommodate this need with a connected computer, or better yet, an electronic laboratory notebook (ELN inside the clean room, which can be used to keep records up to date as the research and requirements evolve.

2: Scientist or code breaker? The tablet is mightier than the pen

Trying to record legible notes into a paper notebook whilst conducting research can be both an annoyance and disruptive. Reading back notes can also be challenging. When you throw a whole range of handwriting styles into the mix, you sometimes need to be more of a code breaker than scientist!

Surprisingly, many labs still rely on paper notebooks for record keeping. Not only is a lab notebook the legacy of a scientist’s work, it’s also a legal document. However, keeping all entries clear and legible seems to be a recurring challenge for many scientists.

If research contributes to the issuing of a patent, the lab notebook will be thoroughly investigated as it is the repository of much of the research and, ultimately, anyone’s claim to the resulting discovery.

The Office of Intramural Training and Education highlights this legal responsibility and the advantages of using an Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN) to combat this issue in its guide ‘Keeping a Lab Notebook: Basic Principles and Best Practices’.

Lab notebooks, whether electronic or paper, can also help protect scientists against false claims to patents and their intellectual Property (IP). Since March 2013, the US has been operating under a first-inventor-to-file patent system, which means a detailed lab notebook can aid a request for a derivation proceeding with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Established labs accumulate thousands of notebooks that need to be converted into digital records. However, a growing number of these labs are adopting electronic laboratory notebooks to keep data entry intact from start to finish removing the need to decipher handwriting and having everything clearly and accurately recorded. This means a huge amount of time is saved, as well as improving legibility and the ability to easily search documents.