Professional LIMS Delivered On-Demand

Scientific laboratories are at the heart of most breakthroughs, investigative discoveries, and product development efforts in science-related operations. Laboratories engage in experimental investigations, management of materials, and management of processes to develop medicines, chemicals, and a host of other products. It is common for a laboratory to have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of samples in its inventory, stored in a variety of containers in numerous locations. All of this information must be tracked and audited on a minute-by-minute basis in laboratories around the world, tasks which until some 40 years ago were performed primarily by hand.

Manual operations resulted in transcription errors, misplaced samples, inability to find a specific sample, and erroneous versions of samples. These and other mistakes were all too common, and often led to delayed product rollouts. In some cases, products never even made it to market due to problems in manually tracking samples and storage locations.

LIMS solutions

Figure 1 - Diagram showing impact of a LIMS on multiple parts of an organization.

LIMS software—used in laboratories for the management of samples, laboratory processes, instrumentation, compliance standards, and other laboratory functions—first entered scientific laboratories more than 40 years ago. Such systems help to capture, store, and analyze the enormous amount of information that must be tracked and audited. In the beginning, most systems were developed by in-house staff to simplify their own data management and reporting. Over the past decades, such systems have become more general in nature, appealing to a variety of laboratories.

LIMS solutions must address the needs of different types of users in a given laboratory, such as bench scientists, laboratory operators (or research assistants), process or automation scientists, laboratory supervisors or managers, and project investigators. In many cases, LIMS must track operations performed by users and provide a history of operations, including chain-of-custody information. A LIMS can affect multiple parts of an organization, and multiple organizations, as shown in Figure 1.

Benefits of LIMS

Professional LIMS solutions promise numerous benefits:

  • Increased speed—data can be handled more quickly than with manual methods
  • Better data organization and searching— a computerized database provides more effective data organization and richer search capabilities
  • Improved scaleability—laboratories can handle more activities with fewer resources
  • Higher accuracy—errors are reduced and calculations are more precise
  • Enhanced analysis—data analysis can be performed more thoroughly
  • Regulatory compliance—a laboratory can more reliably meet compliance standards
  • Improved communications—information can be more easily and effectively communicated
  • More business—laboratories can handle more business, increasing revenue and/or grant funding.

Drawbacks of professional LIMS

According to the ARC Advisory Group, the average cost of an initial LIMS implementation is more than $500K, and major LIMS vendors all have similarly priced offerings. Unfortunately, the large commercial LIMS solutions were financially out of reach of all but the largest laboratories with the most funding.

LIMS for laboratories of all sizes

A new approach to LIMS aims to bring professional solutions to the more than 80% of laboratories around that world that cannot or will not acquire a large commercial LIMS product. It has the potential to offer enormous benefits to laboratories of any size, especially in the face of budget and personnel cuts. With an effective LIMS solution, a laboratory can experience greater efficiency and make better use of highly trained resources, reducing inefficient and wasteful spending. A laboratory that is operated efficiently produces better results, leading to greater opportunities and an improved revenue stream or enhanced funding.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) brings professional capabilities to laboratories that may not want to invest in servers, database software, additional IT personnel, and the other factors that often accompany commercial LIMS. The SciLIMS Samples and Storage Management (SSM) system (Sciformatix Corp., Los Gatos, CA) was tested in the Small Molecule Discovery Center, University of California, San Francisco. Eight common laboratory tasks were performed, and the results were compared to manual or in-house-developed approaches commonly used in many small and medium-sized laboratories. The tasks included 1) receiving samples from a supplier, 2) labeling sample containers, 3) tracking container movement, 4) checking samples into storage, 5) finding desired samples for an experiment, 6) finding the container that holds the desired samples, 7) finding the storage location for containers with the desired samples, and 8) finding samples that have been checked out. Each of these tasks is discussed below.

General observations

Unlike the traditional approach to LIMS, which involves purchasing servers and other hardware, as well as software licenses, and involves IT for the installation, testing, and implementation, SciLIMS SSM is installed immediately, and there is no need to purchase additional hardware or software. Since the LIMS is delivered “on demand,” implementation simply consists of downloading a small piece of client software. Once the laboratory worker acquires a user name and password, he or she can commence work almost immediately.

Figure 2 - Sample dashboard screen.

The software has a user interface that is similar to Microsoft® Outlook (Redmond, WA). The top tool bar is the “ribbon” style that is current with software trends. The dashboard provides a live view of the number of samples by type; scrolling over these provides a precise count of each type of sample, providing an overview of the entire site (see Figure 2).

To begin, the system is supplied with a prepopulated set of basic storage types, including freezers, boxes, and plates. The user need only drag and drop these prebuilt items into the rooms and other storage locations that are set up through simple wizards. These tasks can be performed without having to involve IT or waiting weeks or months for changes to be implemented. Most of the tasks discussed in the remainder of this article took less than 10 min to perform.

Task 1: Receive samples from a supplier. The traditional way to receive samples is time-consuming: Information about each sample must be recorded manually. Not only is this time-consuming, but it is error-prone. A simple transcription error can mean the difference between success and failure. With SciLIMS SSM, importing samples is easy. An electronic manifest, provided by the supplier, is imported electronically. The samples can be automatically placed in the container by row or column, and can be automatically numbered sequentially; all the user has to do is make the selection.

Task 2: Label sample containers. Many laboratories still hand-write labels, which are often illegible and fall off. With SciLIMS SSM, there is an option on the screen to prepare and print labels in seconds. They can be printed as bar-code labels if desired, and are human-readable.

Task 3: Track container movement. Many laboratories rely on staff to remember where the containers are stored. If there is a method for keeping track of locations, it is often manual and error-prone. Even when containers are labeled, their precise location is not always known.

With SciLIMS SSM, bar-coded labels can be scanned easily and rapidly, reducing errors and simplifying work flow. Since bar-coded labels can be produced for each freezer, shelf, rack, and individual location, the user merely scans the label when checking the sample in or out, and the database is automatically updated.

Figure 3 - Sample tracking screen.

Task 4: Check samples into storage. Sample tracking is at the heart of the system, and is designed to mimic the way laboratories actually operate. Without an automated system, incomplete information is captured. With SciLIMS SSM, all the information is captured (see Figure 3). For instance, it is easy to see that tube A in box B is in rack C on shelf D in freezer E in room F. Also captured at check-in time is the identity of the person who checked in the sample, and a date/time stamp. This helps immensely in cases in which audit information must be provided or chain-of-custody ensured.

Task 5: Find desired samples for an experiment. Many laboratories expend a great deal of time trying to find information about samples. Typically the information is scattered among multiple documents, and laboratory workers need to search through the documents to locate the desired information. In some cases, they must wait until someone else is finished looking at a document, spreadsheet, or notebook. SciLIMS SSM makes it easy to locate any sample, since all the information is in a common repository and is accessible by multiple users at the same time. Some of the ways samples can be found are discussed below.

Figure 4 - Container tracking screen.

Task 6: Find the container that holds the desired samples. The samples may be in multiple containers that are difficult to find. They may be stored in multicompartment containers (e.g., 96-well plates), which makes finding them difficult. With SciLIMS SSM, all the information about the samples, in all the containers that hold them and in all locations within those containers, is available at a glance. The samples can be located instantaneously, saving time and reducing waste associated with lost/expired samples.

Task 7: Find the storage location for containers with the desired samples. Even when a sample is supposedly in a given container, it is not always easy to find that container. Many laboratories simply do not keep track of container locations, leaving it up to individual researchers to remember where they are stored. In addition, sometimes the hand-written labels fall off the container, making it even more challenging.

The SciLIMS SSM shows exactly which container holds the sample and where it is stored—down to the specific shelf in a freezer. The ability to quickly find samples saves a great deal of time (see Figure 4).

Task 8: Find samples that have been checked out. When laboratories do not save information about containers that have been checked out, countless hours can be wasted trying to find them. There is simply no way to know whether the sample is gone, was moved, or is still checked out. With SciLIMS SSM, when a sample is checked out, a record is kept automatically of who checked it out, when, and whether or not it is still checked out.

Important capabilities

Figure 5 - Topic Search screen.

One of the most helpful capabilities of the system is Topic Search (Figure 5). For example, an operator searching for all the blood samples from females over the age of 25 might receive a result of hundreds of samples. By simply dragging column headers into the sorting bar, results are automatically grouped to allow for simpler retrieval and analysis.

Another key benefit of the system is that it fits well within the work flow of a typical laboratory. Without adding a burden to the laboratory worker, SciLIMS SSM enables instant importing, check-in, and check-out of samples. Bar-code labels can be printed at the touch of a button. The ability to instantly find samples, with detailed information on their precise location, saves a significant amount of time for laboratories of any size.

Conclusion

With SciLIMS SSM, virtually any laboratory can track thousands or even hundreds of thousands of samples, regardless of where they are stored. It is a very accessible approach to LIMS that is within the reach of even the smallest laboratories, and has the added benefit of being extremely easy to use. The system will help laboratories save substantial time and money in the process, even compared to a traditional tracking system. It is likely that SaaS-based LIMS solutions such as SciLIMS will become more widely used in laboratories, just as SaaS-based solutions have become well-established in other industries.

Mr. Chen is Staff Research Assistant, Small Molecule Discovery Center, University of California, MC2552 Byers Hall S504, 1700 4th St., San Francisco, CA 94158-2330, U.S.A.; tel.: 415-514-4505; fax: 415-514-4507; e-mail: [email protected]. Mr. Kent is CEO, Sciformatix Corp., Los Gatos, CA.

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