Lab Cleaning and Organization

Maintaining clean and organized wet-lab and optics-lab spaces protects samples, reduces contamination risk, and helps the group find materials quickly. Shared spaces should be left in a state that lets the next person start working without cleanup or guesswork.

Weekly Lab Jobs

Cleaning is performed on a weekly basis. The person or people responsible for weekly lab jobs are typically announced in Slack or placed on the shared Outlook calendar.

Weekly responsibilities

• Restock public supplies such as pipettes, gloves, pipette tips, and paper towels.

• Clean the floor and empty sharps and biohazard waste according to institutional procedures.

• Replace the dust mat.

• Wipe the public bench in the optics lab.

• Keep the top of the toolbox clean and organized.

If an assigned job cannot be completed during the scheduled week, notify the lab and arrange coverage.

Sample Organization

Sample organization matters because it allows the lab to revisit tissues, confirm results, and assess instrument performance without losing time to reconstruction or relabeling.

• For long-running project samples, the person who imaged the sample is responsible for storing it correctly, labeling it clearly, and updating any shared tracking record.

• Collaboration samples should be dated and labeled with their source. Unless there is a clear reason to keep them longer, do not leave them in storage indefinitely after imaging is complete.

• Ongoing samples may be kept temporarily on the designated bench space, but that area is not a permanent storage location. Move samples to the correct storage location or dispose of them promptly when they are no longer active.