Do you do much work in a lab is it mainly theory based work?

Isabelle Storer answered on 11 Nov 2021:

I tend to spend 70% of my time in the lab and 30% doing things on the computer in the office. The things I do on the computer tend to be analysing data I’ve collected, researching and writing protocols, designing experiments and writing up the results. When I was studying for my BSc degree it was a lot more theory and a lot less time in the lab.

Emma Hall answered on 11 Nov 2021:

Hi Hugh,
It depends on the day, or week, some days/weeks I am totally in the lab, with very little computer time. Other days/weeks I have to do a lot of reading, writing papers, planning experiments, writing up my notes, giving talks. I would say it is in general more lab work than desk based for me, which is what I prefer, but I mainly like the variety.

Craig Anderson answered on 11 Nov 2021:

I used to do every aspect of the work, from collecting samples in the field to lab experiments, followed by all the analysis and writing. Now I’m involved in much bigger projects; it’s impossible for one person to lead all the work, so I concentrate on analysing the data. Learning to work as a team has become a vital part of my work.

I miss being in the field and lab and wouldn’t say no to it in the future.

Frankie Macrae answered on 11 Nov 2021:

During my masters and while I was training as a clinical scientist I spent a lot of time in the lab doing ‘wet lab’ work. Now that I’m fully-trained it is 100% analysis work on the computer (dry lab).

Dapeng Wang answered on 11 Nov 2021:

I have almost never working in the lab. I am working in a “dry lab” in front of a computer every day. My job is about analysing and integrating the data and making sense of data.

Joaquin de Navascues answered on 11 Nov 2021:

That depends very much on the specific project, your role and the type of approach one specialises in. Some people do hands-on experimental work all the time, while other people just do theoretical work, usually with computers. And there is everything in between. However, almost everyone have to spend some time doing data analysis, or planning and designing experiments, or reading reports, all of which which involves using theory.

Frank Schubert answered on 12 Nov 2021:

A lot of my job (besides teaching and admin) is the planning and supervision of research projects, but I still do some lab work. If there was more time in the day, I would love to do more of it.

Yasmin Dickinson answered on 12 Nov 2021:

Hi Hugh! 🙂

As a PhD student I would say a spend a good majority, so about 70% of my time in the lab doing experiments!

The rest of the time I am at my desk:
– planning my future experiments
– reading more scientific articles to keep up to date with what other researchers have recently discovered
– and looking at the results I have collected so far and trying to make sense of them.

I think the balance between lab work and desk based work is nice, so you don’t feel like you’re in one place for too long 🙂

Cobus Smit answered on 12 Nov 2021:

I split my time between the lab (what we call wet bench work) and computer based experiments. We generate a lot of data and most of it requires the use of some coding skills to analyse the data. One example would be if we sequence a plant genome: In the lab we would extract the DNA and then have it sequenced. The result from this sequencing will then need to be processed on a computer. Extracting the DNA and sequencing it takes a couple of days. Analysing the data and constructing a genome from the sequencing data can take months (depending on the complexity of the genome).

Becky Cohen answered on 12 Nov 2021:

Clinical scientists working in genetics in the NHS tend to spend very little or no time at all in the lab – that’s the work of genetic technologists. Clinical scientists mostly analyse and interpret the data that comes out of the lab. However, as part of my training I’m doing an MSc project that does involve some wet lab work, which has made a nice change to the office work I normally do.

Laura Knight answered on 12 Nov 2021:

I am early on in my career so at the moment I work a lot in the lab! However, computer-based work is also important and I am trying to develop my skills in this.

Thomas Nicol answered on 12 Nov 2021:

I spend almost all of my time in the lab as even my computer desk is in the lab. However, I spend about 70% of that time actually at the lab bench running experiments. There is a lot of theory work involved in planning experiments and analysing data but that tends to take less time than actually organising and running an experiment.

Chris Pyatt answered on 12 Nov 2021:

All my work is computer based. I deal with the data produced by the sequencing machines in the lab but the wet lab work that occurs prior to this is done by others.

Mukta Deobagkar answered on 12 Nov 2021:

While studying for my BSc and MSc degrees, most of the coursework was theory and lectures with maybe 20% time spent on practical lab work. But when I first started as a researcher I would spend most of my time working in the lab (over 80%) and would only be at computer to write up the results and plot the data.

Over time as the kind of work I do has changed, there is a lot more day-to-day variation. Some days I am at my computer or in the office for half the time designing experiments, analysing data and putting all the results together to write up papers, preparing for seminars or meetings with colleagues. Other days I will have been in the lab all day doing experiments, something I really enjoy! One of the things I really like about my job is that there is so much flexibility and variety and no two days have to be identical.

Magdalena Sutcliffe answered on 15 Nov 2021:

I think I spend about half of my work day in a lab. A huge part of work of a research scientist is reading published literature and this is as important as doing experiments (if not more).

Jessica Yang answered on 17 Nov 2021:

It depends on the field you go into! I am a statistical geneticist, which is a fancy way of saying I use maths to explore how genes relate to people’s risk of developing mental illnesses. This means I don’t need to be in an actual lab, I can work from anywhere as long as I have my computer! I spend most of my day running analyses and developing ways to collect more data about the illnesses I study.

Question: Do you do much work in a lab is it mainly theory based work?

Comments