A PI assigns an Armenian man and a Russian woman to a project. Before a day passes, she declares she won't work with her Armenian partner. The frustrated PI finally convinces her that in America "we all work together," and the battle ends.
The names of these combatants have been withheld, but their stories, though extreme, exemplify the conflicts that can arise in life science laboratories peopled with researchers of all nations. "I can't say that we're always a homogenous fun family here," says Robert Nakamoto, assistant professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville whose lab employs Russian, Japanese, US, Zimbabwean, Taiwanese, and Chinese workers. He prefers working in an international setting, but he says, "Some of the conflicts have surprised me."
Such conflicts can turn a lab like Nakamoto's into a Tower of Babylon where a duty as simple as sending assays by overnight mail can become an ...
