how to hold a lab meeting - (Oct/23/2011 )

hello all

we have recently decided to hold lab meetings and we seek ideas about how often do we have to do it or is there a proven method to hold a lab meeting that every body could benefit from.

any idea is deeply appreciated.


all the best
mahrak

We have lab meetings once a week.
We start with general lab business (which can include raising any concerns with reagents, use of equipment etc, or just letting others know about anything important going on in the lab, day to day running type stuff).

Then every week it is a different lab member's turn to present. They can show us some new data that they have, or perhaps a talk they are presenting soon (for practice and feedback). If they have nothing like this, then they chose a paper and do a "journal club" type presentation where they go through the paper (put the figures up on a powerpoint presentation) and then we discuss the results and conclusions and how it fits with our work etc

Hello.
We also have weekly lab meetings and separate journal club meetings twice a month. In the lab meeting, everyone presents the most recent data in a power point format, (sometimes raw data) and we all comment on results, sometimes images and even type of statistical analysis and how to represent the data. That is, I believe what makes the lab meetings valuable, one-to-one meetings with PI are always more productive and conclusive but more number of eyes is almost always a better thing. Then that person summarizes the experimental plan for the next week, therefore the rest of the group know what experiments will be done: both to watch and learn or arrange times not to overlap with one another. Our PI keeps a journal for this lab meetings so that she can follow if the work is progressing well and have a better idea of our performances. The general lab affairs is the last topic in our meetings, such as purchases,workshops around and departmental issues etc.
Journal club meetings are something else, so no need to describe that here.