The Lab

“Who used my antibody???" I heard the familiar, annoying voice of a senior Ph.D. student as soon as I stepped into the lab. How is it that all the bad things happen to him all the time? I ignored that voice and went straight for coffee. My favorite labmate was already there. Looking at her, I smiled wholeheartedly. The first thing she says, looking at me, is, "I am over that drama in the lab now." We laughed together.

Having been in research for nine years now, I sometimes feel like I spend less time doing science and more time living through episodes of a sitcom that no one asked for. Between temperamental equipment, fights over the laminar flow hood, animal room booking wars, time-slot drama for Flow Cytometer bookings, caffeine emergencies, and the occasional miracle results, my lab could easily be featured in a multi-season Netflix show. If Netflix ever decides to create The Lab, here's what the cast list and storyline would look like:

The Cast

The PI – The Visionary

PIs are half genius and half ghost-like. Appears with grand, world-changing ideas… then vanishes until a grant deadline looms. During the grant season, he is not just busy—he ensures the entire lab is drafted into his personal reality show, called The Deadline Chronicles. They do not care about minor details, such as a failed Western blot or PCR that did not work. They are always focused on major stories and prominent newspapers. Their emails arrive at 3 a.m., usually starting with "Quick question…" (spoiler: it is never a quick question). Constantly traveling, but appears in the season finale with a new grant.

The Postdoc – The Sigh Machine

Every lab needs one. They have perfected the art of deep, exhausted sighs—the person who has seen enough. Like nothing could bother him now, half mentor, half sitcom uncle, they have seen every experiment fail and every reagent run out. The number of rejections this guy has seen is equal to the number of pipette tips we use in a week. Journal rejection, grant rejection, faculty position rejection, you name it, and he has seen it all. If there were an award for rejections, he would have already received it. When I panic, he shrugs and says, "Oh, that's normal," with a long sigh.....

ThePhD Students – The Dreamers

Ah, the PhD students—bless their hearts! They are endlessly optimistic, relentlessly curious, and usually blissfully unaware of the many things that can go wrong in a lab. Their enthusiasm is inspiring and occasionally catastrophic. Every failed experiment somehow convinces them that the next run will finally be the one. My labmate's catchphrase is: "Wait, I think I see a band!" (It is always a shadow.). Let us meet the different types of PhD students.

The Eternal Optimist: Every failed PCR or botched staining is "practice." They are convinced that this time, the band will appear perfectly on the gel. Spoiler: It rarely happens.

The Naïve Experimenter: They ask questions such as, "Can I just leave the cells overnight without media?". These are the individuals who enjoy trying new things and continually modify standardized protocols. Finally, ends up using the standardized protocol. "What is the worst that could happen?". These are their famous last words.

The Protocol Copycat: They claim to have followed the protocols to the letter, but the result is always slightly off. You can see the smoke coming before the centrifuge even spins. No one understands what they do.

The Accidental Comedian: Pipette tips go flying, plates get mislabeled, reagents mix mysteriously—but somehow, these "mistakes" sometimes produce surprisingly good data! The rest of us stared in disbelief.

The Learning Curve Is Steep: They're learning the ropes, but their naivety is pure gold for comedy. Every minor setback becomes an epic saga: "I lost my cells… again." Cue dramatic background music.

The Clumsy one: They can never remember where the antibody is. The bench will have an ice bucket filled with water, containing floating Eppendorf tubes. They will always forget to log out of the lab computer. When they perform any experiment, the lab will be in disarray, as nothing will be in its place, and the bench will look as if it has just seen World War II.

The Perfect One: These are PI favorites. These are the rare ones, with golden hands. Every protocol and experiment seems to work best when they're around, as if their mere presence casts a spell. Their gels look picture-perfect. These are the ones with well-kept hair, lab coats, clean benches, and well-kept notes. These are the ones when they enter the lab, it's as if a gentle breeze kicks up, and the room smells like a fancy garden party, complete with romantic music playing in the background. You might even expect rose petals to fall as they gracefully glide through the lab—no pressure on the rest of the lab, right?

In short, PhD students are the heart of the sitcom: a mix of perfection, hope, chaos, and unintentional humor. Watching them stumble, learn, and occasionally succeed is what makes the lab feel alive and endlessly entertaining.

The Technician – The Glue

Without them, we would all starve, and the lab would literally combust. They know where every reagent is hidden, can MacGyver broken machines with tape, and somehow remember to order things the rest of us forgot about weeks ago. They know every protocol by heart, can pipette without looking, and run a PCR gel so clean that it could be in a molecular biology advertisement. They move through the lab as if it's second nature—balancing tubes, tips, and notebooks—with the precision of someone who has practically done this in their sleep (and sometimes literally does). Basically, they are a fan favorite.

The Lab Manager – The Unsung Hero

Every sitcom needs a straight-faced, competent character who keeps chaos from completely spiraling. In the lab, that is the Lab Manager. They are part wizard, part referee, and part therapist for broken equipment and stressed-out scientists. Calendars, supply orders, safety training —they juggle it all while the rest of us panic over missing antibodies or double-booked machines. Spilled media? Broken centrifuge? Missing tips? They handle all emergencies while the rest of us are still trying to figure out how it happened. Everyone forgets protocols, equipment quirks, or where the last tube of antibody went, but the Lab Manager remembers. Everything. Always. In a lab full of dreamers, naïve interns, and stressed PIs, the Lab Manager is the one who reacts with perfect deadpan timing, making their quiet comments the funniest moments in the "episode." In short, the Lab Manager is the glue that holds the lab together and the calm eye in the storm of our scientific sitcom. Without them, half of our chaos would become catastrophic rather than hilarious.

The Intern – Comic Relief

Every lab needs a wildcard, and in my lab, that is the intern. Wide-eyed, enthusiastic, and blissfully unaware of the chaos around them, they manage to turn every simple task into a mini adventure. From opening culture plates out of the laminar hood to adding reagents in the wrong tubes. They have done everything. Even after accidentally contaminating an entire plate, they cheerfully declare, "It's fine! I learned something!" Their resilience is both inspiring and slightly terrifying. Every lab has at least one recurring gag involving the intern— spilt media, forgotten gloves, or mysteriously empty boxes of tips. Their mishaps provide the perfect punchline to our daily sitcoms. Despite the chaos, they bring energy, curiosity, and a sense of laughter. They remind the rest of us why we fell in love with science in the first place—before deadlines and broken centrifuges took over the lab.

In short, the intern is the lovable, unpredictable comic relief, turning small disasters into big laughs—and occasionally, accidental triumphs.

The Equipment – The Silent Character

Our PCR machine is a diva. It works flawlessly for one person and then crashes dramatically for the next. Looking at everyone in the laboratory. As if keeping an eye on everyone. If sitcoms can have talking dogs, our PCR machine deserves its own spin-off.

And there you have it—the perfect cast of characters that could undoubtedly fill the halls of any research lab with laughter, frustration, and the occasional moment of brilliance. If Netflix were to make this reality, each episode would highlight our day-to-day antics, our triumphs, and the hilarious mishaps that come with scientific exploration. Stay tuned for the next blog post, where we'll dive into the first few episodes from our lab's wild series—each one a hilarious and relatable journey through research life. From caffeine-fueled experiments to unexpected results, you won't want to miss it!