Medical lab compartments are designed to serve as a location in which study can be done into diseases, pathogens, infections, parasites, necrotic illnesses, genetic conditions, and any other medical oddity which may cross the path of a medical team aboard a starship or in an installation. Though, due to the intensive equipment involved, the dedicated medical lab compartment is not often able to be installed aboard confined ships or small installations.

Following a basic core design, medical lab compartments can be scaled purely by virtue of size and workspace, but follow a set of requirements. All medical lab compartments are provided with their own closed system for life support and other utilities which allows for a medical lab to be isolated from the rest of a ship or installation. Essentially, the workspace is a Nerimium lined Durandium Alloy box with a layer of lead and boron carbide insulation. Further enhancing the medical lab design, is an additional insulation layer projected forcefield system which has been designed to screen out electromagnetic and subspace interference.

Assisting in this priority, medical lab compartments have a three-stage airlock system in all applications. Entry airlocks are used to allow for personnel to disrobe from conventional working attire, middle-locks are used to decontaminate and sterilize through the use of a nanomachine and chemical based spray-down, the second entry airlock is used to transition into lab attire which usually includes some sort of closed environment attire such as the M37/38 Environmental Battledress Uniform. Samples are transfered into the lab by a separate airlock system which runs parallel to the entry and exit system.

Serving as the primary workspace for medical labs, the research room is outfitted with a range of scanning technology, biological sample handling equipment, organic culturing and incubating equipment, and a range of emergency systems used to neutralize experiments which include forcefield projectors, plasma emitters, focused radiation emitters, and a last-resort full workspace sterilization system which uses a combination of atmosphere evacuation, high intensity plasma wash, and gamma radiation sweeps.

Due to the intensive measures which have been taken to isolate the medical lab, communications are handled purely by a single laser-based transmitter which is used to send audio and video communication from the lab's interior.