Research Culture
This page aims to provide an overview of how Tape Lab operates within the UCL Cancer Institute. Specifically, it covers how we do science, the lab culture, and what is expected of lab members. While this page aims to be comprehensive, the team is very approachable if you have more questions. If you are unsure about anything, please ask!
Scientific Aims and Culture
The aim of Tape Lab is to perform world-leading fundamental cancer research with the ultimate goal of improving patient care and survival. To achieve this, we often combine biomimetic organoid models with high-throughput single-cell technologies and advanced data analysis methods. We regularly develop our own organoid models, build our own technologies, and create new computational tools with our collaborators. By developing unique technologies in-house, we are often in a position to perform projects that are highly orthogonal to those possible in other labs. This keeps our work innovative and protects projects from being ‘scooped’ by competitors.
World-leading science demands large, multifaceted projects that can rarely be completed by a single individual. Our projects are typically very ambitious and therefore require people to work together in teams, often for several years. As a result, most of our papers comprise multiple first authors and have substantial contributions from joint co-authors.
Projects within the lab are designed to be unique to the lead researcher, while having overlapping connections to both old and ongoing projects in the lab. You will be assigned a specific research question shortly after joining the lab and trained in a variety of wet lab and computational techniques by existing lab members. If your your project requires skills beyond those available in the lab, we can pay for you to attend external training courses. Inevitably, as the project develops your research question may change, and your work may end up pursuing different aims. This flexibility is normal and a part of doing good science.
In addition to having your own project, is also important to appreciate that we design projects with partially overlapping elements between scientists. The reason for these partial overlaps is as follows:
Partially overlapping projects ensure lab members can easily learn from each other’s experiences (e.g. if one person optimises a part of a protocol, other lab members benefit. If one person discovers something, other projects benefit. If one person writes some useful code, others can use it etc.) Shared technologies and discoveries increase the pace of discovery and maximise synergy between projects.
Partially overlapping projects enable complimentary data to be shared between projects. This is especially useful for fixed-term PhD students who many need orthogonal validation of a finding for their thesis, or for manuscripts where data from multiple individuals can build a common paper narrative.
Partially overlapping projects help increase research integrity as multiple scientists can test a common hypothesis. This ensures major findings are robust and reproducible across scientists.
Partially overlapping projects provide operational redundancy when individuals need to take time away from the lab (e.g. holidays or sick/compassionate leave). You should never feel like your project completely stalls because you have to take some time off — other people in the lab can often help. Operational redundancy also helps us finish papers if people leave the lab before publishing.
Collectively, partially overlapping projects increase the efficiency, integrity, and overall quality of our science. One downside to this model is that projects might become ‘too close’ between individuals, and scientists end up unintentionally working towards a similar goal. If you think this may be happening with a project, please speak with Chris ASAP so we can course-correct.
Chris’ Role
The lab is led by me, Prof. Chris Tape. My role is simple: to empower you to do the best science you can do. To achieve this, I aim to provide you with all the resources, equipment, reagents, connections, guidance, and feedback required to attack a project to the best of your abilities. I aim to foster a supportive environment where constructive communication flows freely between all lab members. I will try to foresee your needs as best I can, but often I will not know what you need unless you tell me. If you have an issue, tell me and I will do everything I can to help you. Do not suffer in silence; it’s literally my job to help you in any way I can.
Weekly 1-1 Meetings — I have weekly 1-1 meetings for ~1 hour with all PhD students and postdocs. (If technicians would like 1-1 meetings that can also be arranged.) Much like lab meetings (see below), the purpose of 1-1 meetings is to briefly update me on progress and problems so I can help you plan next steps. As most things in science fail, I want to see what’s not working as much as what is working. I need to see the problems so I can help you move forward. Never feel like you can’t meet with me because you ‘don’t have any new data’ or ‘nothing is working’ — that’s when we need to talk the most. There will be times when we can’t make 1-1 meetings due to travel or holiday commitments etc, but we aim to keep them as regular as possible.
Career Progression — All lab members will have unique career goals. Some PhD students will want to go onto a postdoc, whereas others will want to go into industry. Some technicians will want to go on to a PhD, while others will want a more senior technical role. Some postdocs aim to lead their own research group, while others may want to join or start a company. Clinicians have very different career paths to non-clinicians. It is important to discuss future career goals with me so that I can tailor your time with Tape Lab towards achieving these goals. If I understand what motivates you in the long term, I can help provide you what you need in the short term. Formal Appraisals can be conducted at any time but must be requested by you.
If I am doing my job properly, your progress should not be limited by factors outside of your control (e.g. environment and resources) — your progress should be in your hands. Hopefully you will find that empowering!
Communication
Tape Lab operates as a team, where members are expected to work together and look out for each other. Modern science requires teams to collaborate and that entails respectful and clear communication between individuals. The ability to communicate clearly is a major criterion during staff/student recruitment to the lab, so hopefully you’ll be surrounded by people with good communication skills.
Lab members all sit together in an open-plan office space to encourage efficient in person communication. We share a wet lab space in 108 and tissue culture facilities in 109. We also communicate digitally day-to-day via Slack (tapelab.slack.com). You are expected to run Slack on your work computer and on your phone if possible. We operate a range of Slack channels with specific purposes. For example, the #tape_lab channel is used for general discussion, the #cytof_xt channel is for CyTOF related topics etc.
Individuals in the lab often work at different times and may contact you outside of traditional working hours. For example, I am a morning person, have a young family, and travel internationally for work, so may message you outside of Monday-Friday 09:00-17:00 GMT. Do not feel pressured to respond to messages outside of your working hours and feel free to block notifications when not in the lab. The purpose of Slack is to provide efficient light-touch communication within the lab and with collaborators, not to overwhelm people with notifications.
We also have a communal Tape Lab Calendar (via Google Calendar) that documents meetings, conferences, and lab absences (e.g. holidays, WFH etc). Please use this calendar to record and share important events in the lab. You do not need to document everything you do in the lab calendar, only events that might help others in the lab understand where you are (e.g. meetings, lectures, training, doctor’s appointments, annual leave etc) so that we can avoid contacting you (e.g. via Slack) during inconvenient times.
If there are notable disagreements between individuals in the lab, please tell me as soon as possible. Disagreements can often be easily addressed through open discussion when caught early.
Lab Meetings
Lab Meetings are held every Wednesday 10:00-12:00, normally in the 1st floor meeting room. Each meeting we focus on one scientist’s research project, with compulsory attendance by all lab members. The Lab Meeting schedule will be updated in the lab calendar and is also available here. If you need to move your Lab Meeting date, please speak with Chris. We try to be as flexible as possible, but everyone must participate in Lab Meetings.
The purpose of Lab Meeting is for the rest of the lab to help the presenting scientist with their project — no matter how preliminary or advanced the work. Not just to show off fancy new data, tell a polished story, or try and impress everyone. Think of Lab Meetings as ‘science therapy’ where the lab provides collective advice on ongoing projects. Presenters are strongly encouraged to share failures as well as successes so the rest of the lab can suggest solutions on how to overcome problems. There are often multiple ways to navigate a problem and Lab Meetings allow us to debate solutions as a group.
To help a project, we must critique it. Our science will be heavily critiqued when we present it externally via posters, oral presentations, and peer reviewed papers — there is no escaping critique in science. The more internal review we can perform ourselves in-house, the stronger the work will be when it is inevitably critiqued externally. Just nodding along and pretending everything is fine with a project when there are clearly problems does not help anyone in the long run.
With this in mind, lab members are encouraged to critique projects openly in Lab Meeting. Lab members may politely interrupt in the middle of a presentation to commend or debate a point. It’s much better to identify problems early, in a safe space amongst colleagues, than later with confrontational strangers during peer review. This open critique process also helps PhD students practice defending their work for thesis committees and their eventual viva. If you think something is wrong, speak up now; it’s how we make our science better.
Lab Meeting rules and mindset:
Lab Meetings are mandatory.
No phones or laptops (unless looking up something relating to the discussion). Donate your attention, not just your time.
Critique the idea, not the person.
The best ideas have to win, irrespective of who has the idea. Arguing from authority is not allowed.
We learn by doing. Often the best answer to a debate is “do the experiment”.
Lab Meeting slides must be shared via the Tape Lab Dropbox (see below) to ensure other members of the lab can revisit your slides.
Lab Meetings are held in person at UCL CI, but we can stream on Zoom (via https://ucl.zoom.us/my/christape) for those who cannot make it into the lab.
Dissemination: Publications, Presentations, Posters, and Patents
To have the widest possible impact, it is essential we disseminate our findings clearly and robustly. This occurs via several formats:
Publications — We publish original research articles and reviews in peer reviewed journals (see http://tape-lab.com/papers). All papers are written in Overleaf, a web-based LaTeX environment, and all figures are compiled in OmniGraffle Professional, with files kept in manuscript-specific Dropbox folders. Plots are produced in Python, R, GraphPad Prism (see the UCL Software Hub), and occasionally in partnership with Phospho Biomedical Animation. Please speak to me if you are unsure how to access the software you need for your research.
Papers are often co-written by multiple authors (typically the first author(s), myself, and external collaborators) in a collaborative fashion with regular feedback from other members of the lab. Authorship positions are constantly reviewed during the development of a paper (including peer review revisions) to ensure authors are accurately acknowledged. Co-first author papers are common in our lab and co-authors always reserve the right to re-arrange authorship positions on their CV (e.g. Smith and Jones et al. can be changed to Jones and Smith et al.).
While all papers are eventually peer-reviewed, we also pre-print all papers on bioRxiv. Exceptions to pre-printing will only be made in specific circumstances (e.g. ongoing patents; see below). We publish all data and executable code alongside pre-prints to maximise the impact and reproducibility of our research.
Presentations and Posters — All lab members are encouraged to submit abstracts to present posters and oral presentations at conferences. Moreover, students and postdocs are expected to present at the UCL CI internal seminar series ‘Cancer Institute Research in Progress Seminar’ (CIRPS) approximately every 18-24 months.
Presenting your work is an important part of being a scientist. It’s great for getting feedback on your ongoing project, helps you build confidence with public speaking, and aids career networking. Putting together a good poster or presentation while a project is still developing is also a great way to consolidate a project narrative in preparation for writing a publication and/or thesis.
We have a Tape Lab poster template to aid efficient poster design and can perform mock presentations for anyone in the lab to help practice and refine slides. Presenting can be stressful, but the only way to overcome performance anxiety is through practice and exposure — which the lab can provide.Patents — If our science is considered commercially interesting, we may patent elements of some projects in partnership with UCL Business. As patenting can be a long process and interfere with publication strategies, the decision to patent our work is dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Data Sharing, Collaborative Working, and Transparency
It is essential that all data generated in the lab can be accessed and re-used by everyone. The scientist who produces the data always gets priority to analyse the data first, but eventually all data must be accessible by everyone. We go to great lengths (and expense) to generate data, so we have to maximise our ability to learn as much as possible from each experiment.
We use the electronic notebook Benchling for day-to-day experimental design, protocol management, and reporting of results. Please sign up with your UCL email and join the Tape Lab group. It is very important that experiments and protocols are documented in such a way that they can be clearly reproduced by future researchers. In addition to being good scientific practice, clear documentation is especially important to ensure that new lab members can reproduce protocols established by current and past lab members with minimal presumptions. If an old protocol requires a new lab member to ‘read between the lines’ or constantly message the old lab member to clarify points, the protocol is likely not written clearly enough. Please consider the needs of future scientists when writing up your day to day work.
All CyTOF data is managed via Cytobank. Cytobank is a cloud-based data analysis environment where we perform initial data QC, gating, and data management. Downstream analysis can be performed in CyGNALand custom R/Python scripts.
Scripts can be shared via the Tape Lab Github.
We operate a shared Tape Lab Dropbox to enable lab members to share files. Please ensure all lab meeting slides are shared in the ‘TAPE LAB/Presentations’ folder. Advice on setting up a Dropbox account can be found here.
When publishing papers, we always make all data publicly available and provide executable notebooks so readers can reproduce figures from the papers. It is therefore important you document your code in a way that can be easily understood by other scientists, as it will be shared in the future.
We write manuscripts in Overleaf, a web-based LaTeX environment. All figures are compiled in OmniGraffle Professional, with files kept in manuscript-specific Dropbox folders.
Ordering and Deliveries
All order requests should be placed in the Consumables Sheet and an approved purchaser will place the order. It can be helpful to draw attention to orders in the #tape_lab_stock channel if you want items ordered quickly. If you need to order IT equipment, please speak with me.
Deliveries will typically be left at the far end of lab 108 (by the Opentrons Flex robot). Please unpack new deliveries ASAP as they may be temperature sensitive and report where you have stored the items in the #tape_lab_deliveries channel. It is very important that the received date is added to the Consumables Sheet next to the item. All orders need to be ‘receipted’ by the original purchaser for the vendor to get paid, so we must keep an accurate record of each delivery.
Working Hours, Annual Leave, Absences, and Working from Home
UCL employees (postdocs, technicians) will receive a formal contract describing your exact working hours per week (e.g. 37.5 hours/week) and holiday allowance. PhD students are not considered UCL employees, so PhD students have no formal working hours or holiday allowance.
Different people work best at different times, so the exact time when you’re in the lab is largely up to you. If you’re a ‘Morning Lark’ you can come in early and leave early, if you’re a ‘Night Owl’ you can come in a bit later and leave later. A job in science is dynamic and we try to give everyone as much flexibility as possible. The only exception is if you have a scheduled meeting (e.g. Lab Meeting).
UCL employees (postdocs, technicians) should request annual leave via the formal UCL MyHR system and record the dates in the lab calendar so everyone knows where you are. Students should document their holiday in the lab calendar and let Chris know when they’re going to be away. We operate a flexible working from home policy — but please record the dates in the lab calendar so everyone knows why you’re not in the lab and that they can still contact you via Slack. If you need time off for prolonged illness or compassionate leave, please speak with Chris.
Lab Events
Although not on a strict schedule, we try and enjoy a few lab social events every year. Some common examples include:
CRUK Muddy Race for Life (Spring) — Each spring the lab tackles a CRUK Pretty Muddy Race For Life; a 5K run that involves climbing, crawling, and sliding through lots of mud. We aim to raise money for CRUK who fund a large proportion of our research. The pace is slow so everyone can join irrespective of previous running experience.
Christmas Curry (December) — A few weeks before Christmas the lab down tools and enjoy a giant curry thali session at Dishoom. Vegetarian and vegan options are available.
Go Karting (December) — To blow off some steam at the end of the year we visit F1 Drive in London. No driving licence required. Talent optional.
PhD Viva Celebrations (all year) — Following a successful PhD viva we host a party in the UCL Cancer Academy to celebrate the newly minted Dr. The party includes lots of food, music, pictures, some elaborate custom presents, and an embarrassing speech from me. Students are encouraged to invite their friends and family.
For pictures of lab antics please see our Gallery.
Summary
Tape Lab is a highly collaborative, inclusive, and dynamic research environment. We combine technology development with novel cancer models to study fundamental questions in oncology. We look out for one another, communicate with respect, and perform world-leading science with the ultimate goal of improving the outlook for cancer patients.
Hopefully the guidance outlined in this document answers many questions you may have regarding how the lab runs, but please reach out to me and the lab with anything we’ve missed.
Chris Tape, PhD
Professor of Cell Communication
University College London Cancer Institute