What to do about the laboratory skills gap

摘要

If a worker is only as good as their tools, then a scientist is only as good as their technicians. Innovative new ideas only go as far as theories without the technology to put them to the test, and results can't be analysed unless you've got someone on your team with the technical skills to run the machines and generate the data. Technicians need to ask themselves, "Of all the world-class research that's been carried out in my lab, how much of it did I help to make happen?" The answer might just remind you why you keep coming into work. The people in the labs - from the principal investigator to the trainee technician - already know this, of course.