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What Lies Behind the Research

An Interview with HIRI Lab and Infrastructure Manager Christiane Albert-Weißenberger

Laboratories provide controlled environments for experiments and measurements, fostering numerous inventions and discoveries that positively impact our lives—such as penicillin, vaccines, and X-rays.

At the Helmholtz Institute Würzburg (HIRI), lab and infrastructure manager Christiane Albert-Weißenberger ensures that research in the lab runs smoothly. In this interview, she talks about her work and responsibilities, the most exciting spot in the lab, and what the laboratories of the future might look like.

What are the responsibilities of a laboratory and infrastructure manager?

Responsibilities vary from institution to institution. At the HIRI, I guide the PIs in the vital fields of biosafety, genetic engineering, and radiation protection. We work with pathogens that can cause diseases in humans or animals. This requires special training and permits, which I am responsible for. As the biosafety officer, I consult on genetic engineering, assist group leaders with applications, and ensure proper documentation of genetic work. Anyone wishing to work with a new pathogen or starting a new genetic experiment must speak to me, first. My tasks are therefore important to ensure that everything runs smoothly and safely in the It's my job to make sure that everything in the lab is regulated and safe. As infrastructure manager, I procure new laboratory equipment, including market research and assessing whether our laboratory meets the requirements for the desired equipment. Sometimes, this means remodeling, as was the case recently with purchasing fume hoods that run on forming gas. We had to install a safety cabinet and reconfigure the room to create more space.

What makes the role of a laboratory manager so important?

In addition to ensuring safety, an important aspect of my role is to support our research group leaders. While they are responsible for their labs, they have myriad other responsibilities. Junior group leaders who are new to lab management often lack experience in genetic engineering, biosafety or safety protocols. In such cases, I offer support: they don't have to read all the regulations themselves, but they can come to me and I'll be happy to advise them.

The same goes for market research; group leaders know what they need in a new instrument, but they rarely have the time for in-depth research, which I do by comparing instruments from different manufacturers.

Let's peek behind the scenes: What's the most fascinating part of our lab?

I find our autoclave area particularly exciting since it houses the most important piece of equipment in the building. Our autoclave is essential for maintaining a clean and safe laboratory environment, which allows us to conduct research on pathogens effectively. This area consists of several rooms. In the first room, contaminated waste and glassware are placed and our cleaning staff load the continuous autoclave. On the opposite side, in a second room, they unload it. The waste is disposed of in the residual waste bin, while the glassware is cleaned and sterilized in dishwashers located in a third room. Our researchers can then reuse the clean glassware.

The Helmholtz Institute Würzburg is currently constructing its new building on the medical campus. How are you involved as a laboratory and infrastructure manager?

So far, I have undertaken various tasks in the planning and construction process. Since Rolf Heinrich Troeder assumed the role of project manager for the new building, I have concentrated on the laboratories. I provide the planners and architects with information about the specific conditions in the laboratories so that they can adapt the equipment accordingly. This includes, for example, specifying the required water values and identifying any use of explosive substances.

I was also involved in the furnishing of the laboratory. All the details have already been decided, such as where the fume hoods will be, where the workstations will be, where the desks will be, and how our equipment will be distributed on the floors.

For more and more diseases, point-of-care tests are available for immediate diagnosis close to the patient; at the latest since the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone has probably held one of these small plastic tests in their hands. We at HIRI are also researching point-of-care diagnostics. Will the laboratory as we know it ever become obsolete?

When I started in research 20 years ago, the wet labs that we have at the institute looked exactly the same as they do today. Of course, the techniques used by the researchers there have changed, but not as much as you would expect—and that will probably continue to be the case.

What will change is the equipment we use to perform the analyses. New ones are coming on the market all the time, and existing ones are being refined and adapted to meet new needs. We have areas of research that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. For example, today we can work with single cells. This is only possible because we now have instruments that can separate cells efficiently and quickly. At the same time, these instruments can tag the transcriptome, the set of genes being transcribed in a cell at a given time, so that researchers can sequence it and know which cell it belongs to.

So, the equipment will continue to evolve, but the basics of the wet lab will probably still be around 20 years from now.