Lab Manager | Run Your Lab Like a Business

Cover Story |  Volume 7 - Issue 1  |  January/February 2012

Budgeting 101

Tips for managing your laboratory research dollars

Sections

Editor's Buzz

Frugal Resolutions

On January 1st, 2012, the front page of The New York Times Sunday Business section featured a large, squalling New Year’s Day baby. The headline read: “I Just Got Here, But I Know Trouble When I See It.”

Business Management

Budgeting 101

Tips for managing your laboratory research dollars.

An Enterprise Approach to R&D Informatics

Whether they are developing a new drug, dish detergent, airplane parts or computer chips, companies with heavy R&D requirements face a number of tough challenges. The ongoing economic recession means that businesses everywhere need to rein in spending and do more with less.

To Own or Not To Own?

With the current tough economy, leasing laboratory equipment could be the way to go for many labs that must now work with very tight budgets. Though leasing does carry some risk, it also has many advantages. 

Science Matters: It's a Core vs. Transactional Thing

As the prospect of personalized medicine transitions from concept to reality and begins to truly impact the pharmaceutical industry, almost everyone who works in the sciences could be affected. 

Leadership and Staffing

Lab Manager Academy: Three Reasons You're Failing Gen Y

Do you get frustrated with the Gen Y’ers in your lab? Do you find them to be lazy, apathetic and self-absorbed? Do you sometimes say to yourself, “Where did this generation’s parents go wrong?” Good news! Gen Y is as hard working as any generation before.

Laboratory Technology

The Evolving Service Model

How the right service agreement can extend equipment life, protect assets, simplify operations and deliver savings. 

The Analytical Lifecycle Approach

The Analytical Lifecycle Approach

Adding steps to traditional method validation delivers higher ROI.

January/February 2012 Tech News

The latest equipment, instrument, and system introductions to the laboratory market.

Ask the Expert

Ask The Expert: The Economic Benefits of Lab Automation

Sukhanya Jayachandra, Ph.D., Senior Research Investigator and head of the Cellular Resource Group, Lead Discovery Profiling Compound Management at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), discusses her cell culture core facility.

Lab Health and Safety

iPod, Therefore I Hear

iPod, Therefore I Hear

But for How Long?

Lab Health and Safety Tips

Label All Chemicals

Label All Chemicals to Show the Name of the Material, the Nature and Degree of Hazard, the Appropriate Precautions, and the Name of the Person Responsible for the Container.

Computing and Automation

Integrating Systems

With the architectual basis for integration still undeveloped, users must focus on their own requirements.

Product Focus

Agitating Samples the Right Way

Laboratory stirring and mixing are carried out by either magnetic stirrers (including hot-plate models), table-type agitators and shakers, shaker-incubators, or overhead stirrers. All have their niches.

Product Focus: Analytical Balances

The news in analytical balances comes not from hardware but from user interface and software algorithms that translate electrical signals to weight. 

Product Focus: Microplate Handlers

Microplate handlers are specialized robotic devices that transfer microtiter plates in three-dimensional space from one location within a workflow to another. The “locations” are actually operations such as solvent addition (through liquid handling), aspiration, heating, shaking, incubation, washing, reading, and storage.

Innovating Around the Edges

Refractometers are analytical instruments that measure the refractive index (RI) of liquids. Physicists define RI as the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum divided by its speed through a test medium.

Product Focus: Automated Liquid Handling

Product Focus: Automated Liquid Handling

For automated liquid handlers (ALHs), a secure investment means modularity, flexibility, scalability, and upgradability.

Surveys

2012 Fume Hoods User Survey Results

Indispensable equipment for laboratories, fume hoods protect personnel from exposure to chemicals handled during experiments. 

2012 Evaporators Survey Results

Rotary evaporators have for decades been staples in labs and industries performing chemistry, including labs in the chemical, environmental, materials, life science and forensics industries.  Brought to you by:    

Research-Specific Labs

Perspective On: A Forenics Lab

Perspective On: A Forenics Lab

Stephanie Smith has an exciting job. As assistant lab director of the Physical Sciences Unit at the National Forensics Laboratory of the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS)—the law enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service she puts her daily efforts into making the U.S. mail safer by helping solve thousands of postal crimes.

How it Works

How File Management and Sharing Works

Many laboratories generate thousands or even tens of thousands of files of important data which are frequently disorganized and scattered among multiple computers throughout the lab, and even on laptops that end up outside of the lab.

How It Works: Analysis of Macromolecular Interactions Using CG-MALS

Macromolecular interactions enact vital functions necessary for life, including DNA replication, transcription, mRNA translation, protein degradation, and signal transduction.

How a Lab Safety Research Management System Works

Laboratories are filled with hazardous chemicals, biological materials, animals, and equipment. It’s often the responsibility of lab managers to make sure everyone in their lab completes the various safety training, inventory, and individual registration requirements.