Effective leadership in the QC Microbiology lab is critical to its effectiveness in the corporation, and the accuracy of the data generating in the lab.  Unfortunately, many of us concentrate heavily in the science, without specific training or thought to what goes in to leading the lab.  There are the technical aspects that might be more comfortable to us, but there are also budget and planning issues, motivation of personnel, interaction with other departments as the subject matter expert, dealing with consultants and contract labs, and so on.  We normally learn these skills by doing the activities.  Alternately, there are those who are identified as potential management material and are assigned leadership of the QC microbiology lab as a training experience in management. 

Both of these scenarios can create difficulties.  Microbiology is an operator-dependent science, and the effective lab requires leadership that is skilled in both technical aspects and management aspects of the position.   This conference is your opportunity to learn from experienced lab leaders and from the other participants how to approach lab issues in a productive and effective manner. 

This conference will be moderated by Scott Sutton, Ph.D.  Dr. Scott Sutton earned his Masters and PhD in Microbiology from the University of Rochester (NY). With over 20 years of laboratory leadership experience in the microbiology arena of the pharmaceutical and personal products industries, he now consults through Microbiology Network, Inc.  Clients have included startups, generics, established Fortune 500 companies, law firms and investment broker houses. Laboratory management, training, GMP, testing methodologies and microbiology-related project management are areas of special interest.  He has worked with the USP Microbiology Committee of Experts since 1993, serving as vice-chair since 2000.   He operates the Pharmaceutical Microbiology Forum with its monthly newsletter (http://www.microbiologyforum.org) and serves as a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals.  Dr. Sutton also operates an information source on the internet – The Microbiology Network (http://www.microbiol.org) that provides services to microbiology related user’s groups.  This service also supports three Email lists, the first devoted to pharmaceutical microbiology,  the second devoted to pharmaceutical stability and the third to cleanrooms and controlled environments.