Lab Life | Xing Lab Guide

Acknowledgment

This guide is inspired in part by publicly shared lab guide and resource documents from the Coley Research Group @ MIT and the Wang Bioinformatics Lab @ UC Riverside. We thank these groups for making their materials available to the broader research community.

Overview

This guide is meant to make lab life easier to navigate. It describes how we communicate, meet, document work, prepare manuscripts and figures, share data and code, and learn from one another.

We want to do impactful, ambitious research, but never at the expense of the well-being, happiness, or long-term growth of the people doing the work.

If you need help with research, career development, or something affecting your life in or outside the lab, you are always welcome to reach out to the PI.

Values & Expectations

We want the lab to be a place where people can do careful, ambitious work while feeling respected, supported, and able to grow.

Do rigorous science with generosity: be careful with data, claims, and interpretation; document clearly; and challenge ideas in ways that strengthen the work.
Treat people with respect: excellence is not determined by background, title, language, or seniority. Everyone should feel comfortable to ask questions, raise concerns, and contribute ideas.
Be reliable with each other: take ownership of your work, keep collaborators informed, and raise blockers before they slow the project.
Stay aware of the lab's work: learn about one another's projects and look for collaboration opportunities.
Keep learning: no one arrives knowing every method, instrument, coding practice, or writing convention. Asking for help is part of doing good research.

Communication & Meetings

Communication

Use email for formal requests, external communication, documents, and deadline-sensitive items.
Evening or weekend responses are not expected for non-urgent messages.
If something is urgent, state the deadline clearly.
If you need a recommendation letter, contact the PI at least 3 weeks before the deadline and share the relevant materials.

One-on-one meetings

One-on-one meetings usually happens weekly, or every other week when appropriate.
Bring a short agenda, recent results, and specific questions whenever possible.
Do not wait for the next scheduled meeting if a blocker is slowing the project; reach out to the PI as soon as possible.

Lab meetings

Lab meetings are a shared space to learn science, practice presentation skills, build research judgment, and stay connected with work across the group. Everyone is expected to attend lab meetings unless they have a class, travel, illness, or other conflicts; please inform the PI in advance. Journal club and code review will rotate through this meeting rhythm rather than becoming extra standing meetings.

General weekly lab meetings

Members will rotate through in-progress updates, problem-solving discussions, and occasional planning talks so the lab can give feedback while projects are still flexible.
Research updates should briefly reestablish the project context, summarize recent progress (including any setbacks), identify current challenges, and propose next steps.

Journal club

Presenters should rotate. The presenter should choose up to two papers and share them with the lab in advance.
Journal club is for deeper discussion of important papers and methods. The goal is to build shared scientific judgment, not just collect links. Bring specific questions, concerns, or discussion points to the meeting.

Code review

We use code review to improve reproducibility, readability, testing, documentation, and responsible use of LLM-generated code.
The goal is collaborative improvement, not fault-finding. Come with a focused question, concern, or part of the workflow you want others to inspect.

Time Away & Well-being

Academic work offers flexibility, and we should use that flexibility to build a healthy, sustainable rhythm. More time spent working does not automatically mean better science.

People do their best work when they can rest, think, recover, and keep a life outside the lab. Planning ahead helps the lab support that.

Normal working rhythms may look different across people and project stages, but communication and reliability matter. Keep collaborators informed when your availability affects shared work.
Plan longer absences in advance and communicate them to the PI and to people who depend on your work.
Short breaks, sick days, medical appointments, family responsibilities, and personal emergencies are part of life. Communicate what others need to know, but you do not need to share private details.
Respect other people's time away. Avoid creating unnecessary urgency during evenings, weekends, holidays, or vacations unless there is a true deadline or safety issue.
When deadlines require unusual intensity, communicate expectations clearly and return to a sustainable rhythm afterward.

Collaboration & Authorship

Authorship and collaboration expectations should be discussed early and revisited as contributions evolve. This avoids surprises when a project becomes a manuscript, talk, poster, or public dataset.

The lead author is usually responsible for driving the project, organizing the evidence, and preparing the first complete manuscript draft.
ALL coauthors should make clear intellectual, experimental, computational, analytical, or writing contributions.
ALL coauthors should be kept informed before major decisions, submissions, public releases, or conference abstracts.
No abstract, poster, manuscript, dataset, or code release should be submitted publicly without review and approval from ALL coauthors and the PI.