The Smart Lab Bench

The lab bench is central to scientific research. A messy and dirty workspace will make it difficult to locate items and materials, wasting valuable time, and introducing potential contaminants to your materials. Hence, maintaining an organized (and smart) workbench is key to excelling in your research. 

The most critical aspect of a lab bench is the central area where you will perform all your experiments. This must be a clean and clear area and all other tools should be arranged around this central area. 

1. If you are right-handed, your in-use pipette tip boxes (1 box per tip size) and pipettes would naturally go on the right side. When not in use, pipettes should always be stored upright, set to the highest volume settings, and with pipette tips removed. The easiest way is to use a pipette stand. This will also ensure all your pipettes are in one location – a place for everything, everything in its place! A small waste bin to dispose of used pipette tips would also go somewhere here. 

2. Frequently used materials would go at the back of the workbench, in front of your seat. Depending on your day-to-day work, you would require ready access to holders such as 15ml and 50ml centrifuge tube holders or tube racks. Other items that belong here are reagents used daily such as TE buffer and RNase-free water, so they are within reach, and a squirt/spray bottle of 70% ethanol for decontaminating your bench before and at the end of each day.

3. Occasionally used or experiment-specific items would belong on the top shelf or somewhere else nearby if your lab does not have overhead shelves. These materials should be housed in preferably clear bins (https://amzn.to/4fCYajp), grouped and labeled by the experiment type or purpose to allow easy retrieval. Additional accessories like parafilm and kimwipes also belong here. 

4. While maintaining good documentation of experiments is essential, notebooks and laptops DO NOT belong on the lab bench! This is to minimize the risk of compromising your notebooks or laptops due to spills and accidents and to prevent contamination of your experiments. These should be placed close to your workbench, but not on it!

5. The most important rule of working in a lab is labeling EVERYTHING so that reagents are easy to identify from a safety perspective and it is easy to identify owners of items to prevent contamination. To make this process as easy as possible, keep stationary (permanent markers, labeling tape, scissors, etc.) in the topmost drawer so that they can be accessed easily. Based on what works best for you, other items that can go in the side drawer could be materials that you use frequently like centrifuge tubes, or less frequently such as microscope slides.  

With these 5 basic rules, you should be able to create your own Smart Lab Bench to elevate your research. A final point to note is that the layout of the lab bench would depend on your current work which would likely evolve based on your project(s). Hence, it is a good idea to clean out and re-organize your bench every few months by removing or storing unused items and only maintaining items for ongoing experiments to ensure your Smart Bench stays efficient and effective.

References:

1. Guttman, C (2013). Keeping Your Lab Organized. Inside Higher Ed (Online).