What’s the secret to a successful lab? New “About My Lab” Collection in PLOS Computational Biology

PLOS Computational Biology is pleased to announce the launch of ‘About My Lab’, a collection of informal interviews with Principal Investigators. The featured PI shares his or her experience of running a lab, covering everything from recruitment and funding, to the wild track towards tenure.

Unlike other aspects of working as a scientist, researchers rarely receive training in managing people and labs. We therefore aim to spark a dialogue where scientists learn from one another in an open platform for disseminating experience and opinions, and create a broader awareness of the role and importance of management in science.

As Theodore Alexandrov, the collection’s Guest Editor, explains: “The idea of About My Lab was motivated by an informal conversation with another PI at a conference dinner. She shared her experience on lab management and it helped me back then. I hope that reading such stories as can be heard at a conference dinner can help many readers, especially those like me who are in the early stages of their career.” The outline and aims of the collection, which launches with three Perspective articles and an Editorial, were further developed in discussions between Dr. Alexandrov and PLOS Computational Biology’s Founding Editor-in-Chief, Philip E. Bourne.

Learning how different labs operate will give readers the opportunity to see the variation between labs that may depend on geography or field. However, we also aim to highlight the common practices of Principal Investigators to provide insight for those starting out in their careers or about to embark on them. And who knows, even seasoned PIs may learn something!

You can visit the collection at: www.ploscollections.org/aboutmylab

By Chris Hall, Senior Publications Assistant, PLOS Computational Biology