March 3, 2020 - National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research and Upcoming Events – March 2020
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is our nation’s medical research agency and strives to make scientific discoveries that improve health and save lives. Founded in 1870, the NIH conducts its own scientific research through its Intramural Research Program (IRP), which supports approximately 1,200 principal investigators and more than 4,000 postdoctoral fellows conducting basic, translational and clinical research. In this blog, we will highlight recent ground-breaking NIH research, while also providing links to upcoming NIH events designed to keep researchers abreast of the latest discoveries.[Read More]
February 25, 2020 - Benchtalk Volume 3: Applying Breakthrough Technologies in Life Science
Welcome to Benchtalk, a journal produced by Benchling. At Benchling, our mission is to accelerate life sciences for the benefit of humanity. As part of that mission, Benchling strives to engage the life sciences community in meaningful discussion and cross-discipline dialogue about the extraordinary goals of the field so that, together, we can work toward a better future. The quarterly Benchtalk Journal showcases the groundbreaking work of brilliant life scientists from academia to industry, facilitates discourse among members of the life sciences community, and connects them to revolutionary ideas. This season, Benchtalk is all about the impact that breakthrough technologies – from biological techniques, to software, to hardware – are having on life science, and how leading R&D organizations incorporate new tools into their work. In this volume, we showcase the thoughts of leading researchers and software experts (including some of our own) on how these breakthroughs are changing the nature of life science, especially as technological advancement accelerates.[Read More]
February 25, 2020 - QLIMS for Cannabis Companies – Part 1 of 3: Cultivation
In the lead up to ACannabis and AMCC 2020 conferences in March we are releasing a series of blog posts on how your organisation can implement laboratory informatics that can streamline your quality assurance processes right from cultivation to testing and finally manufacturing the medicinal cannabis product.
The first part of this series will focus on how QLIMS, Laboratory Information Management System, can help manage your cultivation facility and processes, with a focus on data management, quality, inventory and training management.
February 18, 2020 - Experience More from Your LIMS Vendor – Part 1: The Selection Process
Selecting your laboratory information management system (LIMS) is one of the most crucial decisions you will make for your lab and your company. Whether you need a LIMS to support a rapid period of growth, or you’re retiring aging infrastructure and want the assurances of a smooth, uninterrupted data migration and implementation, the LIMS partner you select should both address your current pain points and prepare you for the future.[Read More]
February 18, 2020 - Trends in FDA Data Integrity 483s and Warning Letters for Pharmaceutical Companies
The manufacture of pharmaceutical drugs is a highly complex process that involves advanced scientific analysis and instrumentation at all stages of production and storage. In order to guarantee the safety and efficacy of both human and veterinary drugs, the FDA strives to verify data integrity in all cGMP records used to document and guide the manufacturing process. The FDA first identified failures in data governance and data integrity in the year 2000 with a warning letter issued to Schein Pharmaceuticals that cited lack of proper controls over computerized laboratory systems. In the years since, the FDA focus on compliance with data integrity regulations in facility inspections has increased significantly. We have written extensively about how the FDA defines data integrity and the current FDA regulations and guidance in this area.[Read More]
February 18, 2020 - Find Your Informatics Match ❤️
The early part of February has conditioned us all to celebrate finding our perfect match. But if you haven’t found a match, this time of year can be hard. If you’re reading this, we’re going to assume that you’re here looking for your laboratory informatics match. In today’s world, we have many options for finding a match. You might get set up by a friend, via referral. You might end up in an arranged partnership, via merger or acquisition. You might try online dating, if you have a high tolerance for information overload from all those demos. After all that, you might engage a matchmaker, someone who gets to know your needs and is with you through the whole process of finding your perfect laboratory informatics match.[Read More]
February 11, 2020 - What to look for when using a LIMS to help with ISO 17025 for starters
This blog will give you an introduction into the basics of ISO 17025 and just some of the requirements which LIMS can help with.
What is ISO 18025?
ISO 17025 is a laboratory accreditation standard that all testing and calibration laboratories vie to achieve to prove their technical competence in performing an array of testing, calibration and measurements for standard, non-standard and laboratory-developed methods.…
February 11, 2020 - Tips on Implementing, Maintaining and Validating Empower 3 Software Custom Fields to Maximize Data Integrity
Waters Empower 3 software is a chromatography data system (CDS) that links to chromatographic instruments to help facilitate management of chromatography test results through data acquisition, processing, reporting and distribution. Waters Empower 3 generates lots of data with complex calculations and detailed reports and has several tools that address compliance and data integrity concerns such as electronic signatures and audit trails. Given that Waters Empower 3 typically generates large amounts of data, transcribing the data from Empower 3 to an external system can present huge risks from a data integrity perspective. As a result, scientific laboratories are looking for ways to maximize their results output from Empower and ideally utilize this system as their only solution for chromatographic results.[Read More]
February 11, 2020 - MELLODDY Consortium Employs Federated Learning and Blockchain to Enhance AI Drug Discovery
A new consortium of pharmaceutical, technology and academic partners is hoping to improve collaboration and competitive data sharing among pharmaceutical companies in ways that would address IP concerns. Utilizing blockchain and federated learning technologies, the MELLODDY (Machine Learning Ledger Orchestration for Drug Discovery) Consortium aims to use deep learning methods on the chemical libraries of 10 pharma companies to create a modeling platform that can more quickly and accurately predict promising compounds for development, all without sacrificing the data privacy of the participating companies. Over the last few years, pharma and biotech companies have been adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and big data approaches, particularly machine learning and deep learning, in hopes that these technologies will change the way the industry discovers, develops, and manufactures medicines. Advances in computational power have opened up the possibility of creating digital models utilizing machine learning that can dramatically accelerate innovation and yield inexpensive predictions from expensive data.[Read More]
February 11, 2020 - Supporting Life Science IT with Laboratory Informatics as a Service
Modern Life Science laboratories typically utilize many different applications and legacy systems to manage their workflows and data, but unfortunately, there is often very little integration between these systems. As such, managing all the IT dependencies in these modern labs is a significant undertaking. Today’s Life Science IT professionals need to be both knowledgeable across scientific domains and experts at the informatics. The reality is that creating the necessary integrated laboratory ecosystem and the subsequent support, maintenance, and extension of it is such a significant undertaking that only large companies with sufficient budget and resources have been able to attempt it. With the rate of data generation increasing exponentially in Life Science R&D laboratories, there has never been a time when laboratories are so tightly coupled to informatics systems and scientists so dependent on IT. In this challenging environment, IT professionals often get bogged down in supporting current infrastructure instead of developing and maintaining strategic roadmaps to be ready for future demand. In order to future-proof your lab, a third-party informatics vendor with industry experience and expertise in laboratory informatics systems can be a valuable partner to your organization by providing Laboratory Informatics as a Service (LIaaS).[Read More]
February 4, 2020 - National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research and Upcoming Events – February 2020
As part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is our nation’s medical research agency and strives to make important discoveries that improve health and save lives. Founded in 1870, the NIH conducts its own scientific research through its Intramural Research Program (IRP), which supports approximately 1,200 principal investigators and more than 4,000 postdoctoral fellows conducting basic, translational and clinical research. The NIH also provides biomedical research funding for non-NIH research facilities via its Extramural Research Program, investing nearly $39.2 billion in external medical research in 2019. In a study conducted by the Nature Index in 2019, the NIH ranked #2 in the world in terms of published scientific papers, behind only Harvard University in Boston. In this blog, we will highlight recent ground-breaking research that has been conducted through the NIH IRP, while also providing links to upcoming NIH events designed to keep researchers abreast of the latest discoveries.[Read More]
February 4, 2020 - Business Benefits of a LIMS
Ensuring regulatory compliance, reducing errors, streamlining workflows and enabling growth through the introduction, consolidation and integration of IT systems will ultimately pay dividends for the business and help achieve a competitive advantage. However, for many reasons including lack of resources, no formal business plan or the difficulty of articulating the potential business benefits, laboratories often struggle to drive the introduction and modernization of IT solutions in their laboratories. Autoscribe Informatics works with companies worldwide to improve business efficiency. Our Matrix Gemini Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) drives consolidation, improves data integrity and increases laboratory efficiency. Laboratory process automation and workflow management can reduce transcription errors, improve turn-around times, and increase resource utilization; and these are just a few of the business benefits associated with adopting a LIMS.[Read More]
January 28, 2020 - Water Outlook integration added to QLIMS
OnQ Software is pleased to announce the release of our new off the shelf integration to WaterOutlook, an operational data management system, to combine lab results with data from SCADA and field staff.The addition to our integrations catalogue allows customers to maximise the use and benefits of both LIMS and WaterOutlook by allowing data to transfer securely and easily between the two. They may then use the data to make better decisions while having the peace of mind that the integration is fully supported.
