Vision: A world with programmed smart tissues for regenerative medicine
Mission: Inventing and using molecular tools to program cells to design developmental trajectories, both in vitro and with cell therapy in vivo. Developing an operative understanding of how cells build tissues. Communicating our research within and beyond the scientific community. Training the next generation of scientists and leaders in this new field. Generating the best work environment for all of this to take place.
We are a group of scientists that come together to create an environment where creativity can fluorish.
We work individually and in teams, and we base our interactions on honest, open communication.
This philosophy guides how we interact and relate to each other while we pursue our scientific goals, and it serves the purpose of letting anyone that is interested in contributing to the lab understand the lab environment.
We want to create a strong foundation of trust and an atmosphere that supports collaboration. As we work together, we encourage honest, constructive feedback, following the system in a paper by the DePace Lab. We wish to support each other scientifically, creatively and personally. We strive to create an environment of openness and respect both internally and externally. We have “planning meetings” in the vein of this paper every 4 months to ensure we are on the same page scientifically and career-wise.
Our field of research is very novel, and requires constant knowledge of the literature, as well the capacity to move rapidly and change the direction of our projects when needed. We are using a SCRUM-inspired framework, common in software engineering, to maximize efficiency, with biweekly meetings and daily (or so) standup meetings.
We have projects for everyone, from techs to students to postdocs.
To support creativity, de-stress and have fun, we have a creativity area in the lab with lego blocks, coloring books, puzzles and a yoga ball. It is a work in progress and changes frequently.
We maintain the highest working standards. To do that, we critically evaluate our own results internally at weekly lab meetings and resort to run our results by colleagues and peers to minimize biases.