It’s 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and Mark McDonough is making a very familiar journey through a very unfamiliar mode. With the light rain pelting down on his gelled hair, he’s walking the 2-mile trek from East Campus to West Campus. The C1 doesn’t run until 8:30 a.m. on weekends, and his job is simply too important to wait for Duke-provided transportation.

Since his third week as a freshman, Mark has held the position of Lab Technician at the Duke University School of Medicine Zebrafish Core Facilities. Through the job, which he earned via the university’s work-study program, Mark has had the opportunity to make his college experience more affordable while completing the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the university’s labs running.

Upon arriving at work every morning, Mark spends anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour cleaning the filters on the fish tanks, after which he removes feces and inserts food. These three tasks are just a microcosm of his duties as a lab technician, but without them, a majority of his assigned fish would die before their biological characteristics could be fully measured.

As a freshman, Mark McDonough (pictured) has had the opportunity to work in a lab that does cutting-edge research.

Mark’s day-to-day responsibilities are similar to those of many lab technicians. Hundreds of Duke’s affiliated research labs make use of living subjects and biological specimens which must be sheltered, fed, and closely monitored. Without the presence of lab technicians, studies involving these subjects could lead to inconsequential or misleading results.

Mark’s supervisor, Z-Core Facilities Manager Karina Olivieri, fully understands the importance of the three lab technicians in her five zebrafish facilities. Says Olivieri, technicians ensure the “health of the fish and quality of their water so that researchers can collect measurements and make valuable insights.” As the demand for zebrafish grows on Duke’s campus, she expects the number of lab technician roles to grow as well. This trend will likely not be unique to Duke.

The zebrafish’s see-through embryo, rapid life cycle, and well-documented genome make it a “model organism” for biological experiments.

Nationwide, demand for lab technicians has accelerated in many of the largest research corporations and academic institutions. According to the Foundation for Biomedical Research, almost every U.S. drug must pass through animal testing in order to reach FDA approval, meaning that larger amounts of living specimens must be preserved as the pharmaceutical industry grows. The rising presence of these experimental subjects may be why the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that lab technician roles are increasing at a rate of 11%, which beats the national average for STEM occupations.

Though lab technicians don’t present work at prestigious conferences or see their names printed at the top of cutting-edge research articles, their work is pivotal for ensuring that innovative research can be conducted at Duke and beyond. So in the unlikely event that you recognize a passing stranger as a lab technician, make sure to thank them for their service to the Duke community. They keep the university’s vibrant research scene – and its fish – thriving.

Post by Shariar Vaez-Ghaemi, class of 2025