As an undergraduate researcher you are not expected to know everything about proper lab etiquette. You are simply a student in training, ideally for graduate school. You will be appointed a research mentor, which will be a graduate student, post-doc, or your Primary Investigator (PI). Who ever your mentor is, they have more experience in the lab and therefore it makes sense that they would have more authority in the lab.  When you have a question related to your research project they should be able to answer without hesitation. Well this is almost always true. What happens when you reach aroadblock in your experiment? Who do ask for help? Your research mentor? What if you ask your research mentor for help and you don’t agree with them?

There was a disagreement that I had with my mentor when I was working in the Fygenson lab at UCSB. I was working on an experiment designed to compare two measuring apparatus’ to see which of the two provides the most precise data. My experiment consisted of formulating vesicles with a mass of approximately 100 attograms. The experiment requires two buffers that osmotically match and have a large density mismatch in order to achieve the required mass. The vesicles were to be formulated in a dense buffer, which would induce a mass increase upon the vesicle by filling the hollow interior. The second buffer would act as the dispersant.

Sucrose and glucose were the buffers originally selected, each at a one molar concentration. Complications arose when we were unable to distinguish the difference between the nanoparticles from the sucrose buffer and vesicles themselves on one apparatus. We decided to change the experiment by lowering the concentration to ~50mM and introducing polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG 6000) in replacement of sucrose. The increase in molecular weight difference between the PEG and glucose made it possible to reduce the concentration of the buffers. Unfortunately, complications also occurred with the new PEG buffer. The osmolarity data of the PEG buffer was inconsistent.

I decided to approach my graduate mentor with the problem. She asked me to repeat the process in front of her so that she could give input on the situation. She concluded that my technique in measuring the osmolarity of the buffers was incorrect, causing me to collect bad data. I was unsure of what the problem was at the time, but I was confident it had nothing to do with my technique. I have experience with the osmometer and am quite familiar with the data collecting technique.

I proceeded to the UCSB library website, searching the Web of Science for an explanation. I was fortunate to find a publication that addressed my problem. Apparently, PEG displays erratic behavior that prevents one from measuring its osmolarity. It has a property that disturbs the interactions between its molecular structure and water. As the concentration of PEG solution increases, the disturbance of interactions between the molecular structure and water also increases.

I went to my graduate mentor with good news; I had found the real problem. There was clearly a power differential between my graduate mentor and I. I decided not to start an argument when faced with this disagreement as she obviously has more lab experience than I. Yet, I still went to her with good news. I determined that the only way to prove I was correct is to find evidence. I believe I handled the situation in a professional manner.

So when in doubt, do your research, find evidence that will back up your argument,  and you will be able to prove your point.