Best practices & top tools for lab safety

Laboratories are more hazardous than almost any other average workspace, containing an array of substances and machinery that could cause harm. To promote lab safety, it is important to recognize workplace risks in order to determine how chemical, biological, and physical dangers can be minimized.

Whilst many laboratories are governed by their own set of rules and regulations, many safety precautions are also down to an individual scientist. From academic students and industry workers to full-time research scientists, lab users must be mindful of the tools and chemicals they encounter on a day-to-day basis, and acquire a detailed understanding of how best to avoid unnecessary exposure to hazardous materials and prevent potential injury or illness. This can be achieved by ensuring users have been provided with the necessary training to guarantee that chemicals and equipment are not misused or mishandled.

The critical role of lab consumables

From disposable overalls, test tubes, and beakers to gloves and disinfectants, laboratory consumables play a vital role in achieving and maintaining a safe working environment for scientists.

With this in mind, it is important to buy such products from reputable and reliable companies which supply products that comply with current regulations. Starlab is committed to supplying high-quality consumables including pipette tips, high-level disinfectants, gloves and other laboratory products, for research and development. Starlab's portfolio of lab safety consumables includes the following products:

Chemgene lab surface disinfectant

Maintain a safe lab environment with the Chemgene high-level laboratory surface disinfectant, which combines active ingredient molecules with micelle cleaning technology to penetrate through cell walls to ensure rapid cell death.

StarGuard^® Comfort

Guard yourself in the lab with these comfortable gloves designed to reduce hand fatigue by providing excellent tactile sensitivity. These StarGuard^® Comfort gloves have been recognized as an Ergonomic Certified product, providing measurable ergonomic benefits by delivering both comfort and fit, ideal for those handling small instruments and working in environments that demand consistent and reliable grip. These gloves have drawn praise from SelectScience reviewer Sandrine Altmeyer, CEA, who writes "Work in confidence with this glove. Resistant and flexible gloves that make handling easier and protection effective."

StarGuard^® Protect

Made with strength and durability in mind, these strong, comfortable nitrile gloves have been developed to provide excellent durability to help protect against chemical splash, biohazards, water-miscible substances, weak acids, alkalis, aliphatic solvents, as well as oil and grease, whilst providing outstanding comfort and reliability.

Contaminant-free: Workstations

Lab workstations are designed to offer scientists a clean and consistent working environment that is free from unwanted contamination. Selecting the most suitable workstation can be challenging and there are many important factors to consider, such as durability to ensure materials within the chamber can withstand spillage, and how easily the workstation can be cleaned and how effectively it can remove contaminants.

Since practicing a good aseptic technique can only get scientists so far, Starlab has developed the GuardOne^® Workstation that provides the ideal workspace for sensitive and critical applications requiring a clean environment or protection from potential contamination by bacteria, DNA or RNA. The GuardOne^® Workstation minimizes cross-contamination risk to protect your valuable samples and reagents. This application note details how the GuardOne platform can help meet your lab safety goals, equipped with a two-stage filter system to create an ISO 5 cleanroom environment that provides a complete solution to protect samples from cross-contamination.

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