Lab coats have a size-inclusivity issue

Whenever London-based cell biologist Jennifer Rohn joins a new lab, she finds herself being ushered over to a cardboard box filled with an array of lab coats. It’s then that she’s given her first task: find one that fits. But nearly all the lab coats available are too big for her, and the sleeves are too long, says Rohn, who is now at University College London (UCL). “Sometimes when you’re trying to do work, you have to roll up your sleeves, which kind of defeats the purpose,” she says. Those challenges aren’t unique to Rohn. They’ve come up anecdotally time and time again in popular science comics and on various social media threads. And although there’s little data on the availability of well-fitting personal protective equipment (PPE) in research environments, studies looking at firefighting and other occupations suggest the problem of ill-fitting PPE is widespread, especially among women. Those deficiencies