Starting a New Lab:
Developing New Techniques and Hiring Personnel
Francisco H. Andrade, Ph.D.
University of Kentucky

Congratulations, you’ve landed your dream job. Come next July 1, you’ll be a brand new Assistant Professor, with your own office and lab space galore. All set and on the way to instant academic success, right? WRONG! The fun is just beginning… To paraphrase, the road to success is paved with pitfalls. And there is probably no greater pitfall than staffing and setting up a new lab: I would argue that most of your professional success depends on getting these two key elements right.

As a newly minted scientist, you will bring a number of methods to your new laboratory, the product of the training and experience that forms the foundation of your work. You may also need to establish unfamiliar techniques in order to tackle those novel ideas floating in your head. At the same time, you will realize that you need help. The research workload and competing obligations (teaching, service) require that you recruit capable personnel to assist you. These issues are closely related: laboratory methods and techniques depend to some extent on available personnel.

The "vision thing"
It all starts with your plan of what you want to do, the “vision thing.” It is critical that you formulate this plan even before you start the job search. First and foremost, your vision focuses the types of jobs and institutions you look for. It will not do to apply for a teaching-intensive position when what you really want is to do research. Second, your plan will outline the material and personnel needs for your future research program. These are issues that will come into play during the negotiation for a start-up package: be ready for them. Therefore, this discussion will focus on establishing lab techniques and personnel hiring decisions, assuming that you have spent the last few months (years even) crafting a detailed plan for your first independent position.

Our most valuable resource
One underappreciated fact is that the most valuable and scarce resource we have is time: use it wisely. Careful and thoughtful planning will lead to good decisions, which in turn will save you precious time and will make you more productive.

Think about it: time spent establishing complex new techniques or training inexperienced staff is time not spent generating data for papers and grants. At the end of the day, papers and grants are valuable currency in the academic research realm. For better or worse, they document productivity, and more or less emphasis will be put on them depending on how research-intensive your new institution is. Time spent setting up techniques or training staff will NOT count toward promotion and tenure. However, training staff and retooling the laboratory have to be done repeatedly throughout your career. My point is that the time invested on those tasks must be optimized as much as possible. By the way, word selection is not random: time is invested, and you minimize risk and maximize return on your investment by planning.

Setting Up Lab Techniques: Out With the Old, In With the New?

A new laboratory is an empty canvas; the care and thought you put into setting it up will determine whether you end up with a masterpiece of functionality or an inconsequential doodle.

Deciding on techniques
One of your first concerns must be to decide what techniques you need to have in place to do your experiments. There are two competing extremes: go with the things you already know to maximize productivity, or go for fancy new techniques to establish an independent track record. The first option is basically going with what is comfortable. It is easier to stay with the familiar methods learned during your pre- and postdoctoral training. Those are the methods that you use for the “now” questions: the experiments that are logical extensions of your recent work. The second option represents those new toys you would like to learn to use, techniques that bring a different perspective to or open a new direction for your studies. The issue is then to decide the balance of old and new that is right for your research. The choice is based on the direction you want to take your laboratory, tempered by the complexity and feasibility of the approaches, in turn influenced by the intellectual and material resources available at your new institution.

The first question that comes to mind is, when do you choose what techniques you want in your new laboratory? The day after you accept the job offer is too late! You must develop a vision of what you want to do as an independent investigator during the last stages of training. Certainly before you start to interview for jobs, you should have a fairly detailed plan, including what you will need for new techniques. This is very important because the negotiation for a recruitment package will include the allocation of funds for laboratory equipment and supplies, separate from salaries and benefits for the investigator and other personnel.

Acquiring new techniques
Some of the new techniques you may need can be acquired rather easily. Maybe it’s just a piece of equipment, say an ultraviolet/visible light plate reader for enzyme measurements. You’ll have to factor the cost of the equipment, service contract, plus whatever specialized supplies needed to use it. These items are typically easy to use (after some basic training and practice), robust (rarely break down), and, once in place, it is freely available to anybody in your laboratory. You may want access to more expensive equipment (confocal microscopy, real time PCR) available in institutional core facilities. At most places, training for you and your staff is provided by the core’s personnel and access is shared with other users, sometimes limited to regular hours (sorry, no evenings or weekends). Talk with the core’s staff to estimate user traffic (does it quadruple just before grant deadlines?) Keep in mind that you may have to pay sample processing and use fees; figure that out early and estimate how much you and your staff will use the equipment. There is also the cost of dedicated supplies (plates and reagents for real time PCR, for example) that you may have to consider. However, there is no initial purchase cost or service contracts to worry about. Then there are those specialized techniques that you have to contract out to a core facility within your institution or to an outside company providing the service. Really, really need that expensive and complicated genetically engineered mouse? Chances are you will be talking with these people to figure out costs, feasibility and time lines. Actual hands-on involvement of your laboratory staff will be minimal, if any at all. Finally, you can acquire methods by collaborating with your new colleagues. This is a great way to get useful data even before your laboratory is fully operational.

These are just some examples of the possibilities for setting up a new method in the laboratory. Once they are clear in your head, decide what is available and what is best for your laboratory, estimate the costs (equipment, supplies, personnel time), and include them in your start-up request. Be prepared to negotiate: is existing equipment optimal for your needs? Can you share with other users? Negotiation will progress faster if you have a realistic view of what your laboratory requires. In other words, can you justify what you request? Again, you are the ultimate expert when it comes to deciding where your laboratory is going and how it will get there. Make sure you make an informed decision.

Hiring Personnel: Choices, Choices and More Choices

In a typical academic environment, there are four sources of research personnel: technicians, postdoctoral trainees, graduate students and undergraduate students. I will make the somewhat artificial distinction between hiring staff (laboratory technicians) and recruiting trainees (graduate and undergraduate students). Postdoctoral fellows and scholars fall somewhere in between: some institutions consider them staff (with full staff benefits), some consider them trainees (without full staff benefits). You will need to figure out the hiring policies for postdoctoral scholars at your new institution. Again, understanding your goals and planning are critical

Lab tech or trainee?
First, identify the tasks (with time-frame and level of complexity) to be done in the laboratory in the short- (<1 year), mid- (1-2 years), and long-term (>2 years). A good technician will be productive with little or no training. A graduate student will require 1-2 years of coursework and training; productivity will increase slowly over time. Postdoctoral trainees are somewhere in between but generally require less training and have a vested interest in productivity and attention to detail. Be careful and match the research tasks to the type of personnel assigned to them; failure to do so will frustrate your staff and waste everybody’s time. Along these lines, you should clearly lay out the job expectations and objectives to prospective personnel (staff and trainees): avoid nasty surprises a few months down the line if things don’t work out.

Make HR your friend
Make it a point to visit the Human Resources office during your recruitment interviews to get a primer on local hiring practices. Discuss the characteristics of the applicant pool in terms of available training and expertise levels. Once on the ground, when you decide to hire a technician, work closely with your contact person in Human Resources. They know the system and will help you and the applicants to go through the process as expeditiously as possible. A word of caution: follow STRICTLY the policies and guidelines provided by your Human Resources office. They are in place to protect the job applicants, the institution and you. Remember that there are severe legal and professional consequences to discrimination of any sort; adhering to the rules will keep everybody safe.

What level of technician?
One of your first considerations will be to identify the grade or expertise of your planned hire. Do you absolutely need a technician with 20+ years of experience in biochemical methods? Is your research simple enough that somebody fresh out of college can be trained to do it? As I mentioned above, the complexity of your experimental approach (your methods) will be a major determinant of your personnel needs. Human Resources will then help you to figure out the salary range for the required level of experience. This range will depend on the regional job market. Just be aware that there are pros and cons to either experience extreme: a long track record could mean “set in his ways”; inexperience could lead to “untrainable”.

Some of those issues can be sorted out during the interview process; discuss with your colleagues how they would approach these issues. Don’t be afraid to ask one of them to help with the interviews, just introduce your colleague as a close collaborator to the applicants. That will give you another, more detached opinion. Most importantly, check references! Letters are nice, but nothing beats a phone call to the previous supervisors for a (hopefully) candid perspective on the applicant. Beware if a reference refuses to provide more than “name, rank and serial number”! That is a strong signal to call other references for this applicant. Then, even if you have absolutely no misgivings and decide to hire somebody, check with Human Resources to see if your institution has a “trial period” (weeks to months) during which you (or the new employee) can terminate employment without prejudice. This trial or test period gives all parties a chance to determine whether there is a good fit between employer and employee.

Undergraduate vs. graduate students
As I said above, graduate and undergraduate students are recruited, not hired. They are trainees, not staff. That means their role in your laboratory is different: they come first and foremost to learn. You have to instruct, nurture, and supervise them. And you decide who is accepted to the laboratory: you are not obligated to take all the students. How much time and effort can you invest (that word again) on them? In other words, how many students can have meaningful research experience in your laboratory at any given time? If a bright undergraduate student with loads of time for research knocks on your door, count yourself lucky and enjoy the project as it develops. However, most undergraduate students have multiple classes and (oftentimes) jobs to worry about. Their time for research and projects is limited and it is tempting to have them take care of all the menial jobs around the laboratory. I think it is more challenging, but eventually very rewarding to identify ways to involve these students in the actual experimental work. It may be something as simple as running electrophoresis gels, or light microscopy, or basic molecular biology. These may not be full projects, but they are still ways for the students to get exposed to current research techniques and for you to get meaningful data: a win-win proposition.

In contrast to the undergraduate students, graduate students will have more and more time for research and will gain valuable experience as they progress. Ideally, your graduate students will be vital to your research: they will (eventually) become productive members of your team and will keep you on your (intellectual) toes. But never lose track of the fact that they are trainees and their needs for mentoring and professional opportunities go hand in hand with the research experience. You will need to spend time on your students to make sure they are well prepared for life after the Ph.D. It is a great ego boost when prospective graduate students ask to join your laboratory. Their mere presence validates your research: somebody else thinks your “stuff” is important! Before you give in to temptation and the clamor of the multitude, take a step back and consider this: can you handle the needs of those students and still fulfill your own expectations for professional growth? If the answer is “yes”, I bet it is because you have managed to merge the training of that student with the goals of your research projects: another win-win scenario for all involved.

A Final Word

The take home message from this and other commentaries on career development is to take charge of your professional life and be prepared. Each career path is unique, the result of the interplay of personal circumstances and the job environments. Therefore, it is not possible to deal with all the combinations and permutations possible for the different aspects of professional life. Instead, the main goal of this column is to make you think ahead and use your time wisely. An effective approach is to figure out where you are in your professional life now, where you want to be in 1, 5 and 10 years, and plan accordingly. There is nothing wrong with ambition and enthusiasm, just be realistic: discussing your plans with friendly colleagues and mentors is a great way to get your feet back on firm ground. 

COMMENTS:

My addition is to emphasize his key point in the “Deciding on techniques” section regarding when you choose techniques that you want in your new laboratory: “The day after you accept the job offer is too late!” I would add that the faculty candidate should evaluate carefully the ongoing research in the department s/he is considering joining. S/he will be make the best choice if the department has some of the new techniques of interest and, very importantly, has faculty who are very open to sharing, i.e., active collaboration and mentoring in the strengths (and pitfalls) of the new techniques.
Michael Sturek
Indiana University School of Medicine

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