r/labrats • u/AutoModerator • 27d ago
open discussion Monthly Rant Thread: December, 2024 edition
Welcome to our revamped month long vent thread! Feel free to post your fails or other quirks related to lab work here!
Vent and troubleshoot on our discord! https://discord.gg/385mCqr
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u/BlackBrantScare 27d ago
First time switching from industry to academia, Im kinda scared and don’t know what to expect
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u/Mediocre_Island828 23d ago
If you're coming from regulated work, it will probably seem hilariously unorganized and you'll be shocked at everyone's practices.
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u/General_Bumblebee_75 16d ago
A lot will depend on whether or not you are in a field that is well funded. I was a lab rat for 30 years in a well funded diabetes lab and we never wanted for anything. I was never a grad student, but a lab manager, institutional radiation safety officer, and research tech all rolled into one. I now work as a health physicist at a major research university and can see clearly that some departments/labs are much less well funded than others. If I were a grad student, post doc, or staff scientist, I would look for a lab that has enough funding for a lab manager. Otherwise you will be stuck doing management tasks in addition to your research. It can be a good learning experience, but makes it more difficult to get your work done. I love academic research, but few PIs teach their students proper documentation.. This will be a problem if you ever want to try to patent something.You will not have adequate documentation to patent. If you are a post doc, you want to be in a lab that prides itself on getting its graduates into solid positions, not labs that will want glorified techs who are working below their ability. Some folks with PhDs simply do not want to teach and may opt to stay in a lab indefintely, whch is fine, but if you want to move up, you want a mentor who will support your career development which includes a lot more than knowing how to do research.
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u/Adorable_Bobcat6029 21d ago
Also did this recently! Went from an R&D startup into academia. The pressure to publish was palpable, and very clearly stressed everyone out to the max. Not something I'd experienced in industry, so was a bit much and created some toxic behaviors that weren't fun to be around.
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u/spacemermaid3825 23d ago
Being a lab manager suuuucks sometimes. I hate getting blamed for things that are beyond my control
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u/SuspiciousPine 25d ago
After 11 months under review at a Nature journal, 7 months for first reviewer comments, 1 for revisions, 2 more for 2nd round, my paper was soundly rejected. Not only that, the reviews were MEANER the second time! One reviewer said:
"It may not meet the standards for publication in any reputable journal."
I'm devastated. I'm a 5th year student, this is my first paper, which was mostly completed in 2022 and has been in writing/revisions since then. I was super hopeful after we made it through a few rounds of desk review and got sent out to reviewers. Now I feel like just throwing this manuscript in the trash, where that reviewer clearly thinks it belongs.
I have a 2nd paper finished and about to submit, and other work in progress. But it just fucking sucks that I have nothing to show for the largest project of my PhD
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u/marigan-imbolc 25d ago
if it took them eleven months to review the paper, it can't possibly actually be 'unfit for publication in any reputable journal' but jfc what a bullshit reviewer comment regardless
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u/SuspiciousPine 25d ago
Yeah, I really don't relate to being that mean about a graduate student's paper, even if you really don't like it
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u/General_Bumblebee_75 16d ago
Nature is not easy to get into. Funding is tight and reviewers who are your peers may not want you to succeed. You can request at least in some journals that hostile reviewers will not review your paper, if you know who the reviewer is. Are you not going to submit to another journal?
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u/SuspiciousPine 16d ago
Thanks, yeah I will resubmit somewhere else. Just need to figure it out with the PI. I actually don't know who the hostile reviewer(s) are unfortunately.
We may try to submit to a journal more focused on materials synthesis than the particular application we tested.
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u/Velight 26d ago
PhD woes: I spend so much time working on collaboration projects and producing and shipping this special chemical every week that I haven’t done an experiment for my own project in 6 months. My advisor says the collab projects don’t count towards my true “first author” paper and I have to publish in a fancy journal. How can I do high end work when I have no time !?!
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u/LylesDanceParty 26d ago
I think it'd be helpful if you took a week to actively track the amount of time you spent on the various tasks that dont relate to your thesis work. (Bonus points for placing them into various categories.)
Then graph it and show it to your PI.
Have a discussion about shifting responsibilities and decprioritizing certain things. Come with your own potential ideas on how to reallocate certain tasks (to show you've thought deeply about it), even though your PI will have their own ideas.
Hopefully, your PI is amenable to this, although I'm under no illusion that all are/will be.
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u/General_Bumblebee_75 16d ago
And you can always find a new lab - sucks to lose the time, but this sounds like a guy in need of a cheap but well educated technician. Not maybe interested in you moving on.
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u/barbie_turik Postdoc // Immunology 15d ago
In exactly 14 days, I'm performing my very last experiment at this lab. In exactly 44 days, I'm boarding a plane for a postdoc in the US.
I don't remember the last time I've been as overworked as this December. I "adopted" an undergrad and a masters student for this final stretch, to try to teach them everything I can, and because they'll keep on working together after I leave, but instead of dividing the efforts we quadrupled productivity...but in a bad way, because now it's the 3 of us doing >10h shifts every day for the past week or so. On one hand I'll be very proud if they actually get to learn from this (specially the undergrad); on the other, I hope they don't spend their holidays burned out (as I most likely will)
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u/AzureRathalos97 15d ago edited 9d ago
Just applied for a job with Astra Zeneca. Suited to PhD grads with molecular background. I didn't have western blotting or an oncology background but felt I hit a lot of the score metrics.
I got rejected less than 24hrs later which was a shock to me.
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u/VesicaVehicle 10d ago
Job applications are tough, especially this year. Best of luck! I know a biotech recruiter in Chicago if you're interested.
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u/AzureRathalos97 9d ago edited 7d ago
Cheers, but I'll have to decline the nice offer as I'm strictly UK based for now. In the not too distant future that could always change ^ ^
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u/VesicaVehicle 9d ago
oh! I read "in AZ" = in Arizona, USA lol.
We'll see how science funding goes in the states over the next few years...
Best of luck!
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u/feedmesushi1 27d ago
Unrelated but kind of related but does anyone else have problem with the discord? I can’t seem to get verified?
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u/unlicouvert 18d ago
The cold spring harbor press websites are so fucking ass it's honestly shocking
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u/strangevenomous 12d ago
My PI never seems to ‘get it’ when I explain something to them. They ask to see something so I do it and show it to them and fully explain the process and they seem to understand but then say for future steps to do what I JUST did…like it’s a new thing? I asked my lab manager if maybe it was me missing something but no, they just don’t seem to understand no matter how many times I draw it out or explain. And I’m brand new, just got my masters, and feel like I have no authority to tell the PI that
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u/voirreyirving 5d ago
literally all PIs do this. they live in an alternate universe that's slightly to the left of the rest of us.
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u/yyc_14 7d ago
I work as a lab manager/tech in an academic lab and I'm so tired of being shit on and trampled upon. This lab is the first one I've ever been in where the PI doesn't stress the importance of lab techs and managers for keeping the lab safe, ordering stuff, preparing reagents and keeping everything organized/ready to go. Grad student (who doesn't like me because I see through his bullshit) graduated and sent a thank you email to everyone... gave special thank you to senior members in the lab including the postdoc who joined back in May... except me (been here for 3 years now). Just stings that I do all this work to not be recognized. Every lab I have been in as an undergrad or grad student, the lab techs and managers were always well respected because they did so much. Cherry on top is my boss (the PI) has to have conversations with me a few times a year to be "happier" at work. Sorry, that's pretty hard when nobody appreciates what I do and bitches about me a bench over because I'm "mean" when I notice biosafety rules being breached in the lab. Not to mention I'm now on strong immunosuppressants and nobody is taking getting sick seriously (coming into lab coughing and joking about how everyone is gonna get sick and we can collect each other's blood for data); not fun having to wear a N95 mask this whole winter to keep myself safe.
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u/newchrisrosa 21d ago
Whats the dumbest way you've injured yourself in the lab?
Apropos of nothing, I smashed my thumb in a centrifuge today.
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u/BlackBrantScare 17d ago
Long story short. I broke my knee tendon, again
So, anyone got advice on working while need crutch? Our lab have stool you can kick around so there is that. Im newly transition from industry to academic (assistant position)
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u/dumbbitchbroad 7d ago
For at least 3 days, I have been trying to figure out how to use the zeiss microscope in our lab. When I finally feel like I got the hang of it , my control images were too low of an exposure, and I can't adjust the brightness on image j. I also don't have the software to do it. So I guess I'm coming to work two next week instead of one. Nobody in my lab was around or knew how to work it besides me.
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u/CDK5 Lab Manager - Brown 2d ago
Recently purchased this Cre mouse from Jax.
Jackson states the strain is hemizygous for the transgene on the X-chromosome.
I bred three litters with the Cre mouse, and PCR genotyping shows all twenty-one pups express Cre.
Am I missing something? If it's hemizygous shouldn't only 50% of pups express Cre?
Or did we hit the lottery?: The odds of all pups getting the transgene is 1 in 2,097,152.
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u/OrganizationActive63 1d ago
Assuming you have CMV Cre. If so, your males are hemizygous but their females are homozygous. So if you got females, 100% of offspring will be positive
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u/OrganizationActive63 1d ago
Even better - go back and read the original paper describing that mouse. It was called “deleter” because it deletes early enough in development that the deletion becomes germline. Test for your deleted region and that is all you need to genotype - so you can get rid of the Cre. It’s a great system - just don’t try to cross those mice to another flox, it won’t work.
Edited to correct typos
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u/CDK5 Lab Manager - Brown 1d ago
so you can get rid of the Cre
What do you mean?
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u/OrganizationActive63 22h ago
Go back and read the original paper. If you know how flox-Cre breeding works, Cre recombinase causes deletion of the floxed sites. Frequently this is used to delete a gene / region in a specific lineage (for example, CD4+ T-cells, or myeloid cells, or fibroblasts or. . . .)
In the case of ubiquitous expression of the Cre recombinase, all tissues / all cells are affected. But some ubiquitous Cre's act later in embryogenesis so the deletion is not passed on in the germline. in the case of CMV, it acts early enough that gametes (sperm / egg) have the deletion and will pass it on.
Some reviewers will insist on a Cre control since some Cre insertions have effects without the presence of floxed alleles. With CMV, once you have the deletion, you no longer need Cre and can omit that from your genotyping, establishing a line of deleted animals with germline deletion. Genotype by amping across the deletion (flox sites), also include primer set that spans one of the flox sites (inside deleted region to outside) to demonstrate heterozygosity.
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u/CDK5 Lab Manager - Brown 1d ago
Assuming you have CMV Cre
That is what be bought: three females with CMW Cre on one of the X chromosomes.
If so, your males are hemizygous but their females are homozygous
We are still talking about the F0's right?
If so: Jax claims the females are hemi.
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u/OrganizationActive63 23h ago
Females can't be hemi - hemi means X/0. Females are homozygous or heterozygous. When I bought them, they maintained a homozygous colony with homozygous females and hemizygous males. Otherwise, 1/2 the males produced would be WT and not worth their time.
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u/OrganizationActive63 23h ago
From the JAX website - "When maintaining a live colony, these mice are bred as homozygotes. "
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u/throwawayfaraway420 27d ago
I’m the only student in my lab and always feel like I’m not doing as much as I should. I wish I had lab mates to help with experiments or ask questions to. It’s stressful and lonely at times lol