Lab Management

Lab Crisis Preparation

Instructor: Tracy Durnan


Lab crises can strike unexpectedly, posing serious threats to experiments, samples, and even careers. From fires to floods, it's crucial to be prepared. Join Tracy Durnan in "Lab Crisis Preparation" and equip yourself with the essential strategies to safeguard your lab against unforeseen disasters.


What is this course about?

There are many different kinds of lab crises, including fires, severe storms, earthquakes, floods, and disease. It is important to be prepared in case one of these crises strikes your lab. Adequate preparation can make the difference between a delay in the lab’s work and mission, or the total loss of data, samples, animals which have caused the ruin of careers. This course, Laboratory Crisis Preparation, will help you prepare your lab to recover from a crisis.


What are the benefits of this course?

  • Understand types of crises: Ensure you are aware of the different kinds of crises that have impacted other labs. Make sure your preparations will cover the different complications that arise from these different situations.
  • Learn from a personal story: Tracy’s lab experienced significant damage from a tropical storm that flooded the city. The flooding caused extended power outages, damaged generators, prevented entry to the building, and prevented resupply of critical needs, like liquid nitrogen.
  • Discover an effective approach to crisis planning: Learn from Tracy’s and other’s experiences and get insight into the 18 elements of an effective crisis preparation plan.
  • Rely on planning rather than luck: a lab crisis can happen to anyone. Learn how to effectively prepare for a crisis and how to test your preparations to ensure that your career can withstand the rigors of recovering from a significant crisis incident.


What are the learning outcomes of this course?

By the end of this course, engaged learners should be able to:

  • Identify at least three different crises that could severely impact a lab
  • List planning actions that are part of an effective crisis preparation plan
  • Explain why current contact lists are important for crisis preparation
  • Recognize at least three planning actions to prepare for staffing issues during a crisis
  • Describe planning steps that will help to protect key samples and knowledge for faster recovery after a crisis


Don’t let a crisis situation destroy your experiments and career. Enroll now and unlock the gift of lab crisis preparation. This preparation is a small investment to protect all the hard work and effort spent to develop and grow your lab.

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Course content

    • Introduction
    • Real-Life Lab Crisis
    • Reasons for Crisis Planning
    • Crisis Preparation Planning
    • Crisis Scenarios
    • Quiz