The Lancaster Lab Turns 2!
Happy Birthday to the Lancaster Lab! It is hard to believe it has been only/already 2 years since I had my start date at Mayo Clinic. I worked hard to finish up my postdoc tasks, right up until the end of the Friday workday on February 27, 2020, then promptly showed up to my new job the following Monday.
Lab members (L to R): Ildefonso Silva-Junior, Shannon Medovich, Jessica Lancaster, Joel Haug, Tina Kwok, Jacob Fisher.
During the first couple months at my new lab, I felt pretty isolated, and eagerly looked forward to the day, later that year, that another new hire would join me in our shared lab suite. In fact, I had written him an email describing my first 3 weeks. For his part, he did not make fun of me for being a complete weirdo and writing such a long email. It is nice to look back at it now because I feel like so much has happened and I have learned so much about immunology, research institutions, and management.
Editor’s Note: for privacy and security, some names and numbers below have been redacted and replaced with XXXX.
===
March 20, 2020
I’m sure it is a strange time to be working in science, and it is definitely weird to try to start up under the cloud of COVID19. On the plus side, it reinforces how important our work as scientists is; on the negative, I have been struggling to get some traction, but don’t know if it is because I am new and this is normal, or because many things are shut down now in the outside world. Maybe both!
This is a long email, but I am hoping that by documenting what I have done so far it can be helpful to you, and also I want to record it for myself. It seems the most recent hire in the department at this campus is XXXX and that is nearly 2 years past, so I have been fumbling my way through processes that some may not think to tell me about. At the same time, the onboarding has gone really well, and Mayo has so many people and resources at our disposal so I’m sure I’ve had it easier than some recruited to other institutions.
MC Onboarding- I went to an abbreviated orientation at the Phoenix Hospital, where I got my badge photo taken and met with a couple folks like the HR to select my benefits, meet with the Compliance Officer, and learn about Mayo Philanthropy. A weird thing happened with the badge photo and it actually took a few days to receive, so for a couple days I relied on my secretary to let me into the Scottsdale research building. I also received a XXXX ID number, which basically gets you into everything you need online at MC. During my orientation I had a meeting with Library Services, and during some down time I went onto the Mayo Intranet in the library using my XXXX ID. There I found my email in Outlook (our emails and scheduling run on Outlook) and found that I already had an email address and emails. One of them was from my secretary, so I drove to Scottsdale to meet her and she let me into my office. Later in the week I had meetings with the Secretary, the Research Operations Manager, and the Financial Analyst. I learned about: milestones for promotion, found out who my Mentoring Committee are, the activities my Secretary will handle regarding reporting % effort, HR online modules to-do (a lot of them!), applying for my Travel Card, using a program for looking at my salary line and start up budget, using the resources on the Intranet, the MC format for writing an email Signature (also, where to find the Mayo logo and official powerpoint slide layouts). I wrote a faculty bio for myself, which is now available on the public-facing Mayo.edu.
One of the orientations was with Dr. Richard Gray, who is, I didn’t realize at the time, the CEO of Mayo Arizona. He was very nice and interested to hear about my research. I am guessing he floated my name to Public Relations, because of my interest in aging, and that is how I got involved in recording video and radio materials for MC about aged immunity and COVID19. It was harder than it looks but fun, but I also wonder if I am too new and eager to say no…?
Before COVID really settled in I managed to have my new faculty party, where other staff got to come eat cookies and meet me. It was my chance to speak casually with the Dean, which is nice because she seems very busy, and meet the few grad students and some of the postdocs. I managed to go to 1 journal club, 1 work-in-progress, and 1 faculty meeting before everything was canceled due to COVID. All these appointments were forwarded fairly reliably to me by various admins. I had some meetings scheduled with Mayo Rochester PIs but they couldn’t come down due to COVID travel restrictions. I didn’t get to go to my formal orientation for new Consulting Staff, I will wait until those start up again hopefully next month.
Getting settled in the office- I got a desktop PC that has access to the Intranet already in the office, the Secretary had set it up before I arrived. My name was already on the office door. Our office doors actually don’t lock, so I have a key to one of my file cabinets if I need to lock up something valuable. I recently requested to purchase a MacBook Pro from my startup funds. I asked the Secretary to order a desktop printer for me, she found one that wasn’t in use so I didn’t have to buy it (sweet!). I put up my books and knick-knacks and arranged my office the way I want it. I received a copy of the “blue and orange” calendar, which is significant to MC because of something to do with clinic scheduling. I have a pager and a landline and the Secretary had to put a work order in for the voicemail to be set up. I ordered a new iPhone, to be paid out of my yearly travel allowance. There is a supply room with office supplies and a large copier/scanner/printer for our use.
Getting lab set up- I am still struggling a little bit with this. First, the issue of the 2-photon microscope room: a very energetic facility manager has been assigned, and he is coordinating all the staff from facilities, engineering, etc. to get the room ready. They are also working directly with the vendors I selected for the microscope, optical table, and laser, which is a huge relief for me. The office stuff from the room has been relocated, and the furniture and sink has been removed. Now they need to paint and tile over the damage, before the optical table (which arrived this week) can be moved up by a rigging company. I now have weekly meetings on the microscope’s progress, and I am hoping that it can be installed by late April / early May.
As you know, other labs are clearing out to make way for us, so it is not an empty room. There is still a couple staff from the XXXX lab working in there until you arrive, and I have been asked very politely to let them stay. XXXX is trying to clear XXXX lab stuff but it is hard because she has her own job in the other research building; she offered me some leftover XXXX stuff, so I have marked some standard dry chemicals and tube storage boxes. The XXXX lab was taken down, and a Lancaster lab sign put up. But there is still a lot of stuff, as well as shared equipment so it is hard to visualize how the lab will end up and it feels pretty crowded. They have cleared one wet bench that I can work with and offered me use of any supplies if I want to try things out. Tissue culture room is similarly very cluttered so we just need to rearrange as we go. They currently have the large biosafety cabinets, but if we hate them they can put in the shorter 4 ft ones. Someone showed me where the lab ice machine is, and I think I will wait for my lab tech to get training on autoclaving and dishwashing. As soon as I can make contact with the flow core for training (the supervisor is gone this week), I am planning to get some mouse spleen from a neighboring lab and stain with leftover fluorophores that were offered to me- that will be my first experiment!
Mayo recently hired a technician for the new Immune Core. The Research Operations Manager passed along 2 resumes from the final 4 candidates that interviewed well but didn’t make the final pick. I decided to follow up on the one that looked especially suited to my work, so contacted her and we had a FaceTime call. After that, I went through the Intranet website to figure out how to post the job position so my candidate could apply, but was lightly scolded that PIs weren’t supposed to set up the job post themselves :) Anyway they edited what I submitted and it got posted, my candidate has applied, and hopefully the approvals will go through so I can hire her. Apparently everything is taking longer at the moment.
Once I can figure out what I will do for ‘real’ experiments, I will then order supplies. I know there are lab startup packages, but wasn’t sure if Mayo should tell me about what vendors already have agreements. The Research Operations Manager suggested I call Supply Chain, who directed me to fill in a work order form. I haven’t hear back yet. In the meantime, the lab manager from the XXXX lab showed me how to order lab supplies on the program Infor, and she says discounts are already built in. So I may just order stuff as I need them? One thing another faculty advised me though, was to seek Mayo-preferred vendors for awesome discounts on fetal bovine serum, so I need to figure out how to get lots in to test, once I have stuff to actually test.
I decided I first need to get mice, so I spent a few days working on my IACUC animal research protocol. I am taking my research in a slightly different direction from my postdoc work, and some of the procedures I needed to work out. A senior investigator sent me his IACUC protocol for a reference, and I also have one from my postdoc institution. The vet offered to take a look at it and made comments as well, and now I am waiting for approval. I did all the AALAS and IACUC training modules. Of course, now with COVID the animal facility will not let us order mice for the time being. I also need to figure out how to do PCR for genotyping, but there are gel rigs and a UV imager in the room so I am not too worried yet. I will also need to figure out how to order primers.
Grant writing- I unfortunately am joining without any external funding, so feel some pressure on myself to get things rolling. Fortunately, I had submitted a letter of intent for an aging research junior faculty grant, and was invited to submit my proposal. So I spent a few days working on that, and feel it is in good condition. I emailed my mentoring committee, but no one responded on reading it over for me, so I will have to bug someone again for feedback.
There is a Research Funding Announcement posting section on the Mayo Intranet, so reading that, I decided that I would like to apply for a pilot cancer grant for new investigators. However I have limited cancer experience, and find the field as a whole a little daunting, so have been reading a lot this past week to figure out where the knowledge gaps are. After reaching out to the Department Chair (I am amazed how generous and accessible he is, for someone with some much administrative responsibility!) He advised me to speak with another senior investigator. I had a great phone call with him, and it helped solidify what directions my questions can go and where the real need is and what would be exciting to reviewers. The application is due in 2 weeks, so I will be busy writing!
That is all I can think of. For the first day I felt like I was basically waiting for emails to arrive in my Inbox, so that I could just react to them. I was feeling like there were a lot of things I needed to do but didn't know what to do to start. Now I feel like I am making some progress on all fronts, though I will feel much better when I have experiments running. Also, I’m not sure how it is in the other building, but it is pretty quiet here in Johnson Research Building. I walk to the doctor’s lounge pretty much every day to move around and get a coffee and snacks. In all, this whole process has been very exciting. I really feel like a Mayo employee now, and I am so happy to be a PI. Hopefully I can keep this optimistic feeling!
====
Wow, that was really fun to read again! I usually don’t get around to reading old writing, because I sort of cringe to see myself, which is why I don’t keep a diary. Before I read it, I had thought that my work life is so different from when I started- but now I think it is the same juggling of tasks, thinking, writing, planning, except now I do more mentoring and data analysis, and also the scope of the activities have advanced, like playing the next level of a video game. I also think that I have gotten a lot more thoughtful about all different types of science, and am less afraid to sound dumb- I want to be sure I am understanding all the big concepts out there, and there should be no shame in admitting that you are not the expert in everything. I am proud to have made it this far on the professor career track, and hope that I continue to grow and succeed in those ways that are most meaningful to me.