ISCRM’s Operational Guidance

This information outlines actions for ISCRM laboratories and cores to take during a pandemic and in response to Governor Inslee’s “Stay Home Stay Healthy” directive. These measures are based on UW Guidance and Best Practices as outlined by the Office of Research.

We have three central priorities:
–Priority 1: Maintain the health of trainees, staff and faculty
–Priority 2: Do our part to improve public health
–Priority 3: Maintain critical research-related activities

  • ISCRM leadership supports all personal decisions regarding lab work & working from home during the COVID19 situation in Seattle.
  • At this time, laboratories are not closed, but operated based on the “Allowable Research” directives put into place by Dr. Lidstrom on 4/3/20, which are detailed here:

Mitigating Impacts to Research Activities Due to COVID-19

  1. First and foremost, we are advocating caution and consideration of your own situation.
  2. To ensure Dr. Lidstrom’s “Allowable Research” criteria are met, we are requesting each PI submit in writing the answers to the decision tree questions posed in the “Areas of in-person research allowable under the new Stay Home, Stay Healthy directive” for each lab member that will continue working in the lab.


UW Guidance

UW guidance on COVID-19 can be found at The Huddle and Mitigating Impacts to Research Activities Due to COVID-19

At present, UW has not shut down research labs and is still allowing COVID19-based research, time-sensitive, and long-term experimentations to continue provided all safety measures & best practices can be followed. In addition, researchers are permitted to maintain and care for their animal colonies and animal experiments that are already in progress.

In the event that UW does decide to fully shut down research, please have your essential personnel designated with your home department. These personnel will be responsible for checking on equipment, sensitive instrumentation, animals, and cell lines.  Each person in the laboratory should have a plan in place for how they will wind down their experiments with a 24-hour notice.


ISCRM Cores

Ellison Stem Cell Core

  • Will remain open for researchers meeting Governor’s/Vice Provost’s mandates.
  • Staff will be in on an as needed basis: 1) in case anyone needs assistance or reagents; 2) to check on equipment; and 3) stock the rooms
  • Staff will be working remotely when not physically in the Core
  • Limit use to two researchers per room (one per side)

Garvey Imaging Core

  • Will be closed to most researchers
  • Exception: those where the user meets criteria in Governor’s/Vice Provost’s mandates. Advance arrangements with Dale must be made for core use.
  • No training during this time
  • Dale will be working remotely

Quellos High Throughput Core

  • Staff will be in the facility for external patient CLIA screening
  • Will also be working on a SARS CoV-2 screening project—behind BL3 barrier
  • Otherwise will be working remotely
  • There will be no 10X Genomics single cell analysis or Next-Gen sequencing during this time

Aquatics Core

  • Will be closed to all researchers
  • Limited access may be granted to those where the user meets criteria for exceptions to Governor Inslee’s mandate
  • Jeanot and Stan will be rotating fish husbandry shifts
  • Otherwise will be working remotely 


Best Practices 

Work From Home Unless Absolutely Necessary

  • We insist that people who can work remotely do so. This includes all administrative staff. This is to benefit those researchers that have time-sensitive experiments, experiments with animals, and experiments with rare cell lines to encounter as few people as possible.
  • All wet lab experimental work must be done within the limits of our social distancing plan described below
  • Any work that can be done from home should be performed at home to limit the number of people in the wet labs.
  • Everyone at UW should be maintaining scientific communications through virtual meetings. Make sure you have access to online resources provided by UW like Zoom. Just log into your Zoom account using your UW authentication and set up a meeting.

Requirements if Working in ISCRM Labs

  • Daily temperature checks MUST be done every single day that you go into the lab.
  • Daily attestation MUST be done (via WorkDay) prior to leaving home for the lab.
  • A cloth or washable face mask MUST be worn at all times when in ISCRM labs, where there might be chance of within 6 feet of another person.  Masks must be worn in all common areas, around shared equipment, in elevators, etc.
  • More information about these requirements can be found here.

Maintain a Low Person Density Workplace

  • To ensure that safe social distancing can be maintained we are recommending that only 1 person per bay be allowed in a laboratory at any single time
  • To ensure safe distance each lab should have a shift schedule in place that maintains social distancing guidelines.
  • Wear your personal protective equipment in the laboratory, really!  This includes lab coat, gloves, and eye protection.  This will go a long way toward reducing transmission.  Change your clothes when you get home and clean yourself up.
  • During this period, it is reasonable to wear nitrile gloves in public areas within ISCRM to protect from transmission via commonly touched surfaces such as door handles.  When transitioning from the lab to public spaces, put on a fresh pair of gloves to avoid bring laboratory contaminants into public areas.
  • If you are in shared spaces like Core Facilities, Surgery Rooms, Echocardiography, Histology, etc… you must sign up for time in that room on the Calendar system.
  • In shared spaces like TC hoods or procedure rooms that lack an online “Signup Sheet” one should be created that shows when and who will be occupying the shared space. Because the TC rooms are small, we are recommending only 1 person in the space at a time even though there are 2-3 hoods.
  • Maintain at least 6 feet or 2 meters separation from your colleagues whenever possible.

Recognize Symptoms & Take Action

  • Absolutely no one should come on site if they have even the slightest sore throat, shortness of breath, or fever (>99 °F or >37.5 °C). According to UW Medicine, these are the most common first symptoms of COVID-19. Many carriers have mild symptoms but are still contagious. Best practice is to take your temperature prior to coming into work for the day.
  • Cover your face when coughing or sneezing. SARS-CoV-2 spreads through droplets from coughing and sneezing. These can linger on surfaces, so please cover your mouth with an elbow or tissue, and wash hands thoroughly after.
  • If you are experiencing respiratory symptoms or fever, contact a health care provider first, do not go directly to a health care provider. UW employees are eligible for COVID-19 testing at UW Medicine.

Social Distancing

  • Stay 6 feet or 2 meters apart.
  • No handshakes or physical interactions.
  • No closed room meetings of any kind.
  • No more than three people in any physical meeting, we recommend remote meetings under all circumstances.
  • Lab Meeting and Advisory Meetings should be done remotely.

Clean Environment 

  • Wash your hands with soap, for at least 40 seconds, often.
  • Wipe down high-touch surfaces regularly with soapy wipes or other anti-viral sanitary wipes (Clorox or Clidox)
  • Disinfect shared equipment and pipettes before and after use.

Communication

  • We are recommending on-going communication with lab members especially trainees to keep them informed of operational guidelines and to help make decisions regarding what projects/experiments fall under “the allowable research” guidelines.


Things you Can Do From Home

How do I continue to push my science forward and develop as a scientist when I can’t come to lab? 

  • Design future experiments.
  • Write your papers / start putting together figures for a paper / start writing a fellowship application. Forced time out of lab is an absolute gift as far as writing is concerned. If you think you are even anywhere close to being ready to write a manuscript, now is the time! If you have any questions on this, let your PI know so that you can work together.
  • Read papers. This is a great opportunity to read multiple papers a day, both deeply within your project area and broadly around it. This is beneficial for a million reasons. You get new ideas, you learn about new techniques, you better understand your work in the context of the field, and — not least — the more papers you read, the better you will get at technical writing.  Grad students- start writing your lit review for your thesis.
  • Develop new computational methods and approaches.  This is a great time to develop and try out new ideas/algorithms/approaches!
  • Polish manuscripts / improve computer code / organize information / analyze a data set. Now would be a great time to do that housekeeping you’ve been putting off for a while. Is your data all over the place? Organize it, plot it, and think deeply about it.
  • Work on your Committee Meeting Slides / General Exam / Individual development plan. For graduate students with an upcoming committee meeting or general exam, this could be a good opportunity to knock that work out.
  • Have a one-on-one Zoom meeting with advisors. The more of these the better!
  • Stay in touch with your lab-mates and practice self-care. This situation is stressful for all of us and it is critical that we pay attention to our mental health.