Data after death

It's usually not a situation scientists tend to think about -- until, tragically, they must. linkurl:Karen Strier,;http://www.anthropology.wisc.edu/people_strier.php a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, previously gave no thoughts to what would happen to her data, equipment, funding, and lab personnel -- the graduate students, postdocs, and research technicians -- should she die. Then she lost a colleague and a student in short succession.

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"The combination started getting me to think" about the possibility of my own death, she recalled. Specifically, she thought about "just how fragile our data are if they're not protected," and grew concerned for the preservation her own long-term field data on muriqui monkeys. "Anyone could go out and do another study, [but] the long-term data on life history can take as many years to accumulate as the animals live." Researchers agree that most don't establish a plan for ongoing projects should they die. "I think because I expect to retire before I die, [planning how my lab would cope with my death] is not high on my list of important things to do," said Strier's husband, biochemist linkurl:Tom Martin,;http://www.biochem.wisc.edu/faculty/martin/ also at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But when there is no plan, the transition can be rocky, according to those left behind. To ensure the safety of her data, Strier teamed up with fellow primate researcher linkurl:Susan Alberts;http://www.biology.duke.edu/albertslab/ of Duke University to build the linkurl:Primate Life Histories Database,;http://plhdb.org/ an online database of life history data collected from long-term field studies of seven species of primates. "If anything were to happen me, not only would [my Brazilian collaborator] be able to access my data, he would be able to contact the other members of the working group about any collaborations that would involve my data," Strier said. It's not just data loss that scientists worry about. In labs heavily weighted towards bench work, the fate of the laboratory equipment is of obvious concern. "This stuff then becomes the [institution's] property because in truth that's the original grant awardee anyway," said linkurl:Robert Bellin,;http://www.holycross.edu/departments/biology/rbellin/ currently a biochemist at the College of the Holy Cross and a postdoc in the lab of Merton Bernfield at Children's Hospital Boston when Bernfield died of Parkinson's disease in 2002. But "people don't feel that way," he said. "They feel like this is Bernfield lab stuff." As a result, "I think there was some resentment [by the people] still left in the lab" that "almost everything" -- the real-time PCR instrument, the chromatography rigs, fluorescent microscopes -- "got distributed to other labs within the division," Bellin said. On top of that, "you don't have great guidelines on how this should be done." And in all types of research, there is the issue of what will happen to the people working in the lab. When University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Ann Kelley passed away of cancer in 2007, linkurl:Brian Baldo;http://ntp.neuroscience.wisc.edu/faculty/baldo.html had been a postdoc and senior researcher in Kelley's lab for 8 years. He was well acquainted with the study topic -- the neural processes underlying motivation and pleasure in rats -- and even had his own R01 to study the same system. When Kelley died, Baldo was able to essentially take over one arm of the research program. Hired by the university as an assistant professor, he kept her lab space, and was even able to take on several of the lab personnel, including the senior lab manager, the senior molecular technician, and 2nd year graduate student Michelle Perry, who, thanks to being able to continue her research in the lab, plans to graduate this September, a year or two earlier than she would have if she would have started from scratch. "Dr. Baldo has done the best he could to take on the mentoring role and fill these enormous shoes that Dr. Kelly left," Perry said. A "crucial component" of making this transition as smooth as it was, Baldo said, was Kelley's willingness to talk about things openly. "She showed an incredible amount of strength in being able to help indicate what were her wishes, [and discuss] how were we going to make sure everybody's needs were met, particularly the graduate students who were at a very vulnerable stage in their career," Baldo said. Baldo was also able to take over one of Kelley's federal grants. The National Institutes of Health has regulations in place to allow the transfer of grants should the PI be unable to continue, but some grants are terminated if no suitable alternative can be found. To ensure that funding is continued, "the institution can promote good practices regarding documentation in the lab to make it easier for someone to take over the project should it become necessary," said an NIH spokesperson. "I think it's important" to think about, said Bellin. "Mert himself was not really realistic about his situation," Bellin recalled. "Up until a couple of weeks ahead of time, [he] was still talking about [future experiments he planned to run]. That made some of the closing of the lab more difficult." When a PI dies unexpectedly, the situation is even more difficult. "I don't know if it has to rise to the level of having a standing plan or a living will for your lab," said Baldo, "but it's always a good idea to make sure it's clear where copies of the data are kept, where important information is."
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Losing your lab;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54601/
[May 2008]*linkurl:Top P.I.'s Say That Their Presence In Labs Acts As Safeguard Against Fraud, Sloppiness;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/17535/
[12th May 1997]

Data after death

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