Lab coats – the discrimination we don’t see

Posted on March 10, 2023   by Clare Baker

Have you ever thought that your lab coat isn’t made for you? Has it affected how comfortable you feel in a lab?

On this episode of Microbe Talk Clare speaks to Derek Miller, founder of Genius Lab Gear, about all things lab coats, from impostor syndrome to safety issues. And how he is hoping to produce a lab coat that is designed with the diversity of scientists in mind.

Music: pixabay Chill Abstract (Intention) Coma-Media

 

Transcript

 

00;00;04;21 – 00;00;24;24

Clare

Hello and welcome. I’m Clare and you’re listening to Microbe Talk, the podcast by the Microbiology Society. In this episode, I was inspired by Zero Discrimination Day and International Women’s Day, to talk about the discrimination that we don’t always see. I spoke to Derek Miller about his work creating a lab coat that doesn’t discriminate. Derek called into the podcast from Ohio and I chatted to him over zoom.

 

00;00;27;22 – 00;00;52;02

Derek

My name is Derek Miller. I am the founder of Genius Lab gear, which is a small business that’s really focused on fixing a lot of the smaller the little frustrations in day to day laboratory research. And most recently, what we’ve been working on is a project called the Lab Coat Project. And the goal of this project is to solve all those frustrations that have been lingering for what I would say, decades.

 

00;00;52;13 – 00;01;20;27

Derek

In lab coats, these things with fit and function and the sleeves are too short and the coats too big and the nothing quite works the way it should. It almost seems like they haven’t been designed really well for scientists for a long, long time. And the point of this project is to gather as much feedback by actually listening to the scientists that use them and to take their feedback and to create a design that works for as many scientists as possible.

 

00;01;21;18 – 00;01;28;26

Derek

And so I really like to call it a lab coat that’s designed by a thousand scientists, and that’s how many survey responses we have so far.

 

00;01;29;00 – 00;01;40;27

Clare

Yeah, it’s good that you mention the survey, because I think that was probably the thing that I was most intrigued by on your website. Yeah. Are you able to talk a little bit about that?

 

00;01;41;11 – 00;01;58;07

Derek

Sure. Yeah, we launched it about a year and a half ago with the goal of getting a thousand responses, and we said, if we can get a thousand responses, then that means there’s a real problem here. And people, people need this, and we’d have enough momentum to go forward with the manufacturing. And so now we’re up to almost 1400 responses.

 

00;01;58;19 – 00;02;18;26

Derek

And when we got to 1000, I did a big data summary. I spent like hours and hours and hours digging through this data, reading every single comment. And I learned so much, and I can’t imagine anyone’s ever learned this much about lab coats from the users ever before. And so I pulled out a lot of quotes. I pulled out a lot of data.

 

00;02;19;16 – 00;02;56;18

Derek

I wrote an article about it talking about more of the fit and function that people and those kind of problems that people had. And then recently just wrote another article that really focuses in on what seems to be the biggest problem, which is especially for women in the workplace, where the lab coats tend to be designed more for men or for unisex – which a lot of people would say is for men – and and that it just it leads to kind of a systemic problem of more frustration, more barriers, more friction in the work that women are doing in the laboratory.

 

00;02;57;13 – 00;03;04;25

Derek

And so I wanted to focus in and write a separate article just about that, because I think it’s it’s such an important point from all the feedback that we got.

 

00;03;05;00 – 00;03;22;05

Clare

Yeah, definitely. One of the bits of feedback that came up from your article I read on your website was his idea of lab coats being representative of this imposter syndrome that lots of people feel in the field of science. Yeah. Did you get any more interesting responses?

 

00;03;22;20 – 00;03;42;25

Derek

Yeah, definitely. It’s it makes I would say it it makes a lot of women especially feel like they don’t belong there. They feel like scientific research wasn’t meant for them, wasn’t designed for them. And I guess some quotes that can illustrate this pretty well. If you want me to read a few.

 

00;03;42;25 – 00;03;43;14

Clare

Yes, please.

 

00;03;43;23 – 00;04;02;08

Derek

Because, you know, coming from me, it doesn’t mean a whole lot. But reading the quotes directly is probably a better way to go. Yeah, go about it. For instance, one of the quotes said every lab coat I’ve had has somehow been both too big and too small and horribly uncomfortable. It frustrates me to see others wearing coats that make them look cool and professional.

 

00;04;02;23 – 00;04;06;17

Derek

Meanwhile, I’m over here looking like an ancient Roman who got kicked out of the fashion show.

 

00;04;06;24 – 00;04;07;16

Clare

Oh, gosh.

 

00;04;08;10 – 00;04;32;19

Derek

Another one. Another one from someone who identified as petite said being swallowed by a giant lab coat makes you feel like you’re dressing up in a costume. It creates a strange imposter syndrome that whispers in your ear. You’re not a real scientist. And that’s just two of dozens of quotes along the same theme. Yeah, that really resonate. And I think it’s definitely a big problem that we need to fix.

 

00;04;33;03 – 00;04;59;12

Clare

Yeah, definitely. I think it’s great that you’ve done a survey for this because quite often a lot of these things go unseen and you don’t get asked because there’s quite often very obvious barriers. Diversity within science. Mm hmm. And I think it’s interesting because obviously the lab is something that doesn’t necessarily automatically come to mind, which is why I was really, really interested in in speaking to you.

 

00;05;00;17 – 00;05;08;12

Clare

So I wanted to ask as well about the maternity coats. That was something really interesting that came up. Tell us a little bit more about that.

 

00;05;08;14 – 00;05;30;17

Derek

Yeah, well, that’s still an early development right now. I have a through the survey, actually, I’ve in some of the comments, I’ve found several women already that have just recently been through maternity without a specialized lab coat. And they were kind of talking about some of the problems they had. And so were putting together kind of a small group to help design a maternity lab coat.

 

00;05;31;00 – 00;05;53;15

Derek

And it’s it really just boggles my mind that there’s nothing really out there. If you Google maternity lab coat, you’ll see other lab coat companies advertising on that search. But without an actual maternity lab coat, they’re trying to kind of repurpose whatever else they already have. And these are big companies that, you know, a minimum run of lab coats is usually about a thousand.

 

00;05;53;27 – 00;06;16;09

Derek

You would think that one of the bigger companies could make a run out of a thousand maternity lab coats and sell them. Some quick calculations. I did show there had to be at least 30,000, 40,000 women in STEM who are pregnant every year. And so it seems like a market that’s totally underserved. And it’s and I have to say it’s been done before.

 

00;06;16;10 – 00;06;34;18

Derek

There’s been three or four other very small companies that have tried to make maternity lab coats before. But I found the websites are no longer active, their businesses are no longer active. So I have to be careful, you know, and make sure we do this the right way so we don’t end up just, you know, another another failed attempt and then we can actually make something that works well.

 

00;06;35;00 – 00;07;02;21

Derek

And but I think the way we do that is by listening. And that’s kind of how this whole project has gone and how I try to run this business in general is listening to what the scientists actually want and what they need. And so getting some of these women who have been through it, they know the struggles. And then when we get to the prototyping and sizing phase, we find actual pregnant women who are pregnant and doing laboratory research to test them out and make sure everything is where it needs to be and make sure it works well for them.

 

00;07;02;21 – 00;07;08;12

Derek

And then, you know, get that out there and available in the world. And I think that will be a huge help.

 

00;07;08;21 – 00;07;15;29

Clare

Yeah, definitely. It seems so crazy that you said that, that it just isn’t one for pregnant women. That’s absolutely insane.

 

00;07;16;01 – 00;07;35;13

Derek

Yeah, it’s just the companies just don’t want to take the risk that they’re not going to sell them. And for them, it’s really it’s not a huge risk. It’s maybe a tens of thousands of dollars type number to to create the first maternity lab coat for women. And so I’m personally, you know, we’re we’re willing to take that risk.

 

00;07;35;18 – 00;07;57;26

Clare

That’s good to hear. That’s good to hear. It’s it’s this kind of idea, isn’t it? Of I keep wanting to say like citizen science, but it’s not quite that. But it’s this kind of built by them for them kind of stuff, which I quite, quite like. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like something that would get big community buy in.

 

00;07;58;11 – 00;08;09;25

Clare

I don’t – I know a lot of female scientists and there are lots of barriers and it sounds like something they get involved in because it’s not just a representation issue, it’s also a safety issue, isn’t it?

 

00;08;10;13 – 00;08;26;29

Derek

Yeah, Yeah. And the safety issue is something that’s it’s come up a bunch of times. So many people in their in their feedback, we ask them just to rant about their lab coat. A lot of them say they just don’t wear it very often because they hate it so much. And that was my experience and that’s why I started this this whole project in the first place.

 

00;08;27;22 – 00;08;56;01

Derek

I would only put mine on when I was working on, like with the very dangerous materials and chemicals in my lab. I didn’t wear it day to day if I was just, you know, in there doing some other things. And so to me, the safest lab coat is the one that you actually want to wear. And so we’re starting with kind of that approach of what would make you love wearing this and what would make you feel great when you put it on, because there are very few people that responded in the survey that they actually feel good putting on their lab coat every day.

 

00;08;56;11 – 00;09;17;18

Clare

Yeah, Yeah, I’m, I suppose, drawing on my own experience as well as when I was at school. Gosh, like the lab coats we had were just disastrous. They were massive and yeah, they were dangerous. And we used to have sleeves getting caught in Bunsen burners and God knows. Well, do you have any plans to maybe reach out into sort of education at all?

 

00;09;18;03 – 00;09;43;04

Derek

Yeah, a lot of the respondents were teachers or professors and even some of our beta testers. We just finished assembling a group of about 30 beta testers that are all going to get an early prototype of the lab coat and for fit and function, both for measurements and for testing it in their lab for for feedback. Before we go to manufacturing and I’d say at least two or three of those are also one or two are high school teachers and one or two are professors.

 

00;09;44;05 – 00;10;01;16

Derek

And so we we really want I think a big part of this is also getting that like introductory chemistry lab. Yeah, everybody goes and buys their first lab coat from the university bookstore and those are the worst lab coats. Yeah, the people are usually everywhere is like the $20 one you get from your bookstore.

 

00;10;01;17 – 00;10;13;19

Clare

Yeah, I think definitely getting in there early and making younger people who are new in their careers and science feel comfortable in a lab as comfortable as possible is so important.

 

00;10;13;28 – 00;10;28;23

Derek

Yeah, and really a lot of people one of the biggest problems I found is it’s not necessarily that something else out there won’t solve their problems. It’s that they don’t even know to look for it. They think this is a lab coat, this is what it’s like. And I don’t feel good in it. I don’t feel good in the lab.

 

00;10;29;03 – 00;10;35;21

Derek

Maybe I shouldn’t do science. Maybe I should, you know, switch majors and do something else. And that’s definitely the type of response we want to avoid.

 

00;10;35;22 – 00;11;02;14

Clare

Yeah, 100%. That happens across sort of lots of different areas as well, because it is designed in a certain way and that’s how it always has been. You almost don’t know any different. And I think lab coats maybe are the first step and things that are perhaps not built with women in mind in a lab, there’s lots of things like equipment that are too big for women’s hands, that kind of thing.

 

00;11;02;26 – 00;11;09;16

Clare

And do you have any plans in the future for perhaps accessing those markets within science?

 

00;11;09;24 – 00;11;34;03

Derek

That would be yeah, that would be fantastic. I mean, the whole but my kind of my dream vision for the company as a whole is to be able to go into labs and spend time, you know, watching people work and finding these problems, these little these little things that this and that manufacturer probably don’t normally worry about. But it’s something that comes up every day as a small frustration in going in and fixing those.

 

00;11;34;03 – 00;11;59;13

Derek

And and we did that once with one product already. I was in a lab at the University of North Carolina. They invited me in to to come do this type of thing. And I saw there was a woman in a fume hood and she was propping up a cell culture dish with some like Styrofoam blocks from the old freezer, you know, And that was so that so that the media would drain to the corner so she could pipette it up more easily.

 

00;11;59;22 – 00;12;22;02

Derek

And I said, you know, does this ever spill often? Oh, yeah. Spill spills it all the time. This isn’t very stable. It’s just the best thing we have. And that was a really easy thing to design a product around. So I went and I designed a product. These little stands for these they call them petri dish holders, or I call them culture caddies, and they’re little angled metal stands that are, you know, U.V. stable.

 

00;12;22;02 – 00;12;40;12

Derek

You know, you can sterilize them, no problem. And they hold the pitcher dishes up perfectly. So that’s that’s like one micro example of doing exactly that. And by going into the labs and just kind of watching every one work and asking them about why did why did you do that that way? That doesn’t seem like the way it should be done.

 

00;12;40;12 – 00;13;03;19

Derek

And oh, we do it because of this other thing that almost bothers us. And so we don’t do it that way. And those are the things that don’t get back to the manufacturers normally. And we think we can make a big difference on. And even if it’s not modifying the, you know, $200,000 piece of equipment to fit, we can make smaller products that, you know, kind of accessories that work with those things to make it easier for people to use.

 

00;13;03;22 – 00;13;14;09

Clare

I’m amazing. I mean, that’s great. And one thing that does come to mind if there are listeners who perhaps want to get involved, Answer the survey? Is that something they’re able to do?

 

00;13;14;11 – 00;13;40;11

Derek

Yeah, definitely. We’re going to keep this survey open probably forever so that we can get as much feedback as possible for future lab coat launches. The best place to go for that is on our website Genius Lab gear dot com slash LCP for lab coat project. That’s the landing page for everything. The survey is right there and then the preorder for the first round of lab coats should start sometime in late March, maybe early April.

 

00;13;40;24 – 00;13;49;19

Derek

And if you go to that website, drop your email, you’ll get notified when the preorders open and you can help us reach this goal and make this project a reality.

 

00;13;49;19 – 00;14;05;16

Clare

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you. And I’ll be really looking forward to hearing more as you get more results. And yeah, the survey was just so interesting to me and it just actually blows my mind that this isn’t something that hasn’t been done before. It’s so strange, isn’t it?

 

00;14;05;29 – 00;14;29;02

Derek

I know I find myself spending several hours a night sometimes looking through these details of these sizes and adjusting the size charts and reading comments about pockets. And I think I don’t think anyone else has ever done this before. Right. All of the designs right now are so basic and nobody has this much data to work from to really make a lab coat that people are happy with.

 

00;14;29;12 – 00;14;38;17

Derek

And so that’s what I get excited about, that I have this this collection of people’s stories and people’s problems that we can work work to solve.

 

00;14;38;21 – 00;14;57;03

Clare

Yeah, it’s great. It’s great what you’re doing. I’m really pleased to be able to have spoken to you about it. What a great thought to end the podcast with, creating something so simple that can make a huge difference to scientists lives. Thank you for listening to microbe talk. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a comment wherever you are listening.