“Interdisciplinary” is the buzz word of 21st-century scientific research. But it’s not as simple as putting a chemist, a biologist, and an engineer in the same room to work. Each discipline has its tools and best practices, and projects evolve. Lab planners need to design and equip spaces that are flexible and functional for the research at hand, and where that research is heading.

The Stanford University School of Medicine is tackling this problem with its new “faculty phenotyping” system. Faculty phenotyping tracks the work requirements of each researcher, effectively making individual scientists the building blocks of the lab environment. This approach lets lab planners model research space at a more granular level than has been possible before. Faculty phenotyping also makes it possible to better anticipate the space needed for interdisciplinary research, and to keep space flexible as projects change, begin, and end.

Research Grade Autoclaves for Interdisciplinary Lab Design

An adaptable lab space works best when the pieces you’re moving about are small and can fit in a number of places.

Over the years, we’ve found that North American researchers in flexible or shared spaces often prefer one of our tabletop models (which they often choose to mount on a mobile cart). Worldwide, our most popular research autoclaves are by far our top-loading models, which give the same sterilization volume in as comparable front-loading autoclaves, but in a smaller footprint and at significantly lower cost. They also easily accommodate the tallest flasks, fermentors, and bioreactors, without wasted space or specialized “slant racks.”

[Photo credit: UC Davis College of Engineering, CC BY 2.0]