As we are reopening research here at BU, it's very important that
the facilities are ready to handle the incoming researchers and
make sure they operate in our building safely.
And what I'd like to show you over the next couple videos is the process that we go
through to make sure that happens.
So let's get started.
When we got notice that BU was going to allow a phased ramp up,
everyone was really excited to come back and resume experiments.
There was a lot of planning involved with making sure that the lab would be
a safe place to return to.
Hi! So, I'm heading into the lab right now.
Here's the building.
Our beautiful building.
You know, of course face coverings on at all times. We have a list of things
that we're required to do when we go in.
So the first thing we have to consider as people enter the building,
we need to maintain a six foot distance between the people as they're waiting for
the elevators, as the elevators are deemed one person capacity only.
So I'll be using blue tape to mark off where people should stand while they're
waiting for the elevator.
So we have two spots here in the vestibule and every six feet through the lobby,
people can wait until the elevator's available.
You come in through the front door and it sort of leads you to the elevators and
there's a door now that's keycarded to get to the elevators, so if you're not
a researcher--without keycard access you don't access the elevators.
You knew I never thought I would
miss awkward elevator rides with other folks.
Okay, so I'm getting into my office now.
One of the first things we do, is we switch from cloth face coverings
to a medical grade face mask.
[MUSIC]
One handed, nice!
So our next challenge is lab space.
The Kilachand Center in general,
as you can see behind me is made up of a lot of shared benches.
Just about till now we've been operating at about 30% capacity at any
point, which means that we've broken the lab up into shifts.
For the purposes of space planning, I can take these six bays and
divide them up into two teams of three while still maintaining social distancing.
Each bench is six feet long, by 30 inches deep.
So what we can do, is put down markers of blue and
yellow tape, to indicate where people can sit while working together.
The result is a zigzag pattern,
which allows three people to work at the bench at any given time.
People can work diagonally from one another, but not next to each other or
directly across from one another.
There we go.
One workstation set up for six people in two different shifts.
Alright, so this is the lab space.
I guess probably the most significant change is fewer people.
Like, there'd usually almost always be someone in our bays before.
We've been adopting social distancing
in the lab in many of the same ways that we do all around us.
When researchers are in the lab,
they're staying six feet apart.
They're wearing masks all the PPES.
When we have enclosed rooms
we only let one person in at a time.
Now I can go in.
Some things have been kind of blocked off like eye pieces on microscopes here.
We can just use the camera now.
In addition to that, for microscopes that are not connected to digital computers
we adapted them with simple iPhone mountings.
And the camera from the iPhone
actually just sees right down the eyepiece
and shows us exactly what we would see through the eye hole.
Just seeing the enthusiasm of graduate students and
postdocs now that they've been able to resume has been the best.
And now we're finally seeing some, like, new data.
So that's been really nice.
Okay, just finishing up for the day. It's dark outside.
At the end of each shift
we have a policy where we go through and we clean, the high touch surfaces.
Rigorous cleaning of any kind of commonly used equipment and other
things in the lab, like even door handles and fridge handles and things like that.
One thing I've found is that this whole experience--folks have only become
more passionate about research.
It's a reminder of how important our job is as scientists.
You know, it's really important to push really good science
and to remind ourselves that science is important to the society as a whole
in addressing big issues like the one we're faced with right now.
And so we're really motivated to keep doing that.