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Lab rules & expectations

A laboratory is only a place where one may better set up and control conditions.

Lab Rules: Text

Lab rules

Safety and health:

Your health and safety should always be a priority! Lab members are expected to adhere to safety rules at all times. Lab members must complete all required training/studies before beginning lab work.

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Do not come to work sick. You should not come to the lab with any illness/health conditions that might be contagious. Just drop a couple of lines in the inbox of the PI, stay home, and arrange for any responsibilities to be handled by coworkers.

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Animal models:

To work with animals (e.g., zebrafish, mouse, etc.), at least have some first-hand studies on Ethics of Animal Use and have a consultation with your supervisor and senior lab members. Always act humanely with the lab animals.

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Companionship and cooperation between peers:

Lab members are expected to contribute to a collegial and productive environment. Racist, sexist, feminist, or other inappropriate comments or behavior will not be tolerated under any circumstance.

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Lab meeting:

Common lab meetings are arranged every Wednesday, except for special or emergency occasions (PI would let you know if any exception occurs). All current lab members are expected to pay physical presence in every meeting. Face one face meetings are scheduled on a ‘walk on a basis’ and/or personal appointments. Any collaborator and previous lab members can take part (if necessary) over video conferences.

Lab Rules: Text

Expectations

Work hours:

Lab members (except for part-time members) are expected to be in the lab during most of the regular business hours, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. There will be times when more work is necessary for your project on the weekends or late. GEB 440 undergraduate students are expected to commit at least 10 hours a week. Graduate students (e.g., MS thesis, MPhil, PhD) are expected to work at least 32 hours/week. Working for extended hours is appreciable, but do not hamper your own chores and studies.  

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Rules/Expectations for ALL lab members:

  • Treat other lab members with respect and dignity

  • Prepare for our regular one on one meetings

  • Maintain lab notebooks, including data and detailed methods. Lab notebooks should be sufficient to reproduce results without additional instructions. The lab bears the ultimate responsibility and has the ownership of all data and owns the contents of the lab notebooks, which should be kept in the lab for auditing purpose. A person who leaves the lab can take his/her notebook for personal use but must also submit a copy of all the data, lab notebooks, and all the experimental materials to the lab.

  • Participate in general lab responsibilities (e.g., equipment maintenance, maintain common areas, community outreach events, cleaning, installing, etc.)

  • Chemicals/reagents must be ordered when they are found in low supply, at least ten (10) days before the next time a lab person is going to use that particular chemicals/reagents. All requests should be made through this link: https://forms.gle/kmgEyeyPn35tYXmx5.

  • No food or drink is allowed in the lab


Standing weekly commitments, attendance, and presentations at the weekly lab meeting are expected. If you are presenting a paper/work progress report in a lab meeting, email the group 3-10 days in advance of the presentation date.


Expectations for MPhil/PhD students:

  • Write and submit original and review manuscripts

  • Apply for external funding (either individual fellowships or contributing to more extensive lab grant writing)

  • Present posters or talks of research progress at conferences

  • Mentor undergraduate students


Expectations for MS Thesis students:

  • Write and submit original and review manuscripts

  • Write and submit scholarship/fellowship proposals

  • Contribute preliminary analysis to a full grant proposal

  • Present posters or talks of research progress at conferences

  • Attendance and presentations at departmental seminars

  • Mentor undergraduate students


Expectations for Undergraduate Project students:

  • Write and learn how to write scientific manuscripts

  • Contribute preliminary analysis to a full grant proposal

  • Present posters or talks of research progress at conferences

  • Attendance and presentations at departmental seminars

  • Help MS Thesis, MPhil and PhD students

Lab Rules: Text

Authorship of scientific publications

Authorship criteria in a scientific publication:


In the field of Biological Sciences, most of the journals follow the Vancouver Convention of authorship (Also known as S3A criteria; S - Scholarship, A - Authorship, A - Approval, A - Agreement), which was established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in 1988. These criteria are regarded as the most influential one in this case, and a slightly modified version of this convention was later adopted by the Council of Science Editors (CSE), which is now followed by the physical, applied and social science journals as well. Our lab follows these criteria while completing the author list of a scientific manuscript. In general, the first author is the person who leads the project and writing, the last author performs a supervisory role, and the other authors make important and non-trivial contributions to the paper. One must contribute significantly to the following parts of a research article to qualify as an author:

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(1) Contribute to the

  • Concept development

  • Hypothesis and study design

  • Experimental study

  • Formal analysis and scrutiny of the data

(2) Contribute to writing or revising the manuscript

(3) Read, edit and approve the ‘to be published’ version; and

(4) Take responsibility for the content


Supervision, funding, sweats, etc. are not counted; only the 'weighted value of significance one has played' is to be weighted. The order of authorship should only be based on the weight of contribution. Projects in the lab always evolve, and scientific/intellectual contributions can change over time; thus, authorship inclusion and author order will be re-evaluated accordingly.

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References:

[1] Tarkang, E.E., Kweku, M., and Zotor, F.B., 2017. Publication practices and responsible authorship: a review article. Journal of public health in Africa, 8(1).

[2] International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2016. Defining the role of authors and contributors. Accessed at: http://www.icmje.org/…/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-con… (21 Sep, 2018, 22:34 GMT).

Lab Rules: Text

Grants/fellowships

Lab members should actively seek out and apply for grants and fellowships.

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Lab Rules: Text
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