March 17, 2011 - Defining Responsibilities in the Cloud on Vantage Point

It is very important for those involved in the operation of a flight to understand which portion of the flight they are responsible for, as well as within what parameters they need to operate. Pilots must maintain the altitude and headings assigned to them within specified limits. The controllers must keep aircraft separated from each other by pre-defined distances in 3 dimensions. This system works well, because it allows personnel to perform the assigned roles and manage their portion of the operation, ensuring flights to operate smoothly with no surprise or accident.

March 16, 2011 - Integrating Enterprise-Wide LIMS with Remote Field Testing PDAs for Enhanced Audit Trail and Significant Time and Cost Savings

Colin Thurston, Director of Product Strategy, Process Industries, Thermo Fisher Scientific

Water companies in the UK are required to comply with stringent national and European Union (EU) quality standards. The latest UK legislation came into force in April 2010, under the title “The Water Supply (Water Quality) Regulations 2010, with the aim to ensure the quality of water intended for domestic purposes or for use in a food production undertaking. The EU Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC sets quality standards for drinking water quality at the tap and the general obligation that drinking water must be wholesome and clean.

March 11, 2011 - LIMS Evolution: The Changing Landscape

It’s been 29 years since I first started working in the LIMS and laboratory informatics industry. Commercial software applications for laboratories were in their infancy in the early 80’s and the solutions were mostly aimed at supporting analytical instrumentation – a very narrow focus when compared to today’s broad spectrum of informatics solutions.

March 11, 2011 - How to Build a Successful Training Program

Have you been challenged with developing a training program for your organization? If so, the four techniques discussed can help ensure quality training that accelerates and enhances the learning experience of its audience, as well as improving the retention and effectiveness of the training.

March 2, 2011 - Pilot In Command in the Cloud

Flying in the Clouds: An Introduction to Cloud Computing When I was in my mid-teens, I decided I wanted to learn to fly. I went to the local airport, found an instructor and started my lessons. Soon I had earned my Private Pilot license. For many years, I flew under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and grew very comfortable with the visibility restrictions and limitations that VFR imposes on a pilot.

March 2, 2011 - Advantages of a Data Warehouse

When it comes to behavior, I’m a conservationist and minimalist: I sincerely dislike having to do anything extra or wasted. For example, I dislike taking stairs one at a time because it’s too slow. I never print out anything; it’s a waste of paper that I’ll eventually throw away anyhow. I frequently run across parking lots because I can’t stand the time wasted between walking out a door and arriving at my car. So why would I advocate using a data warehouse as the basis for business intelligence and decision support? Why not get data directly from operational systems and skip the extra system?

February 24, 2011 - Laboratory Informatics Strategy, Part 1: Down the Rabbit-Hole…Again

At the very beginning of Lewis Carroll’s classic book, “Alice in Wonderland”, Alice follows the March Hare down the rabbit-hole without a thought as to why she was doing it or how she would ever get out again. She simply jumps in feet first and, as we learn by reading the rest of the book, gets herself into a lot of trouble while trying to find her way home.

February 24, 2011 - How to Choose an Application Server

Choosing an application server on which to run your LabVantage software is not so much different than buying anything else…a car, let’s say. You need to decide which features are important to you, how much money you have to spend, the level of dealer support you expect, options for repair, the required level of ongoing maintenance, etc.

February 12, 2011 - DIY Cloud-in-a-Box, Part 2

by: John H. Jones, President – LabLynx, Inc.

In my last blog posting, DIY Cloud-in-a- Box, Part 1, I introduced you to the concept of the Private Cloud and the series of articles that will chronical my journey towards the development of a private cloud that can be installed within your own organization or can be hosted in an external datacenter.  Now we continue on with Part 2.

February 8, 2011 - I Would Like to Become a Medical Expert… Any Strategies on Why I Should Be MD, MD/PhD or PhD?

Well.. .my idea is always that prior you decide to set yourself on one of these paths do a little clinical shadowing plus some lab research.

February 8, 2011 - Consolidated LIMS Discussions

There are a number of good LIMS discussion groups on Linkedin. This is a consolidated list of all the latest discussions from the best of the best LIMS discussion groups.

January 28, 2011 - Free 2011 LIMS Buyer's Guide with price lists of some of the most popular LIMS products

The Laboratory Informatics Institute is pleased to announce the coming release of the 2011 LIMS Buyer's Guide. This guide is unique in the LIMS industry by providing a side-by-side comparison of the most popular LIMS products on the market along with complete pricing information.

January 24, 2011 - DIY Cloud-in-a-Box, Part 1

Here at LabLynx, we have been providing our webLIMS.com product as a SaaS/Cloud based LIMS for the past 2 years. This has been a highly successful product offering for not only new customers but long time existing customers have started switching to our Cloud services over hosting the LIMS in their own internal IT infrastructure. As part of our continued R&D efforts in Cloud Computing, I have decided to use my LIMS Journal Blog to chronicle a new experiment in Cloud Computing. It will be called “DIY (do-it-yourself) Cloud-in-a-Box”. The research in this area has already been going on for the past 6 months and there has been tons of failures and false starts with this experiment and so I want to spare everyone that pain by documenting our successes and failures from this point forward.

January 14, 2011 - eLabInventory: Online Inventory Management System

eLabInventory is a an online Inventory Managment System (IMS) designed for life science research laboratories. With this application you can organize, store and share information about all samples and chemicals in an online database that is accesible through our intuitive webinterface.

November 17, 2010 - Potential Big Advancement In Low Cost Sequencing

I am amazed almost weekly with the pace of advancements in new technology, and particularly in sequencing technology. It wasn't that long ago that the thinking was that to get to the magical $1,000 genome would take perhaps a decade or more. But since then new advancements in platforms such as Ion Torrent's array based sequencer, Illumina's Genome Analyzer, Roche's 454, the ABI family of sequencers ;and the new PacBio sequencer are advancing at such a rate that the cost is already approaching $10,000.

November 15, 2010 - Reaping the Benefits of a Cost-Effective Lab Management System Delivered Over the Internet

The Challenge – Affordable Laboratory Management Software for Labs of Any Size While laboratory data management technology has evolved over the past 25 years from simple data collection methods to the current enterprise-level data management and integrated LIMS solutions, too many of the thousands of laboratories around the world are still using manual processes or simple tools like spreadsheets to manage the complexities of laboratory workflow, sample management and data collection.…

October 9, 2010 - LIMSforum.com becomes the industry’s largest user’s group for LIMS & Laboratory Informatics with over 10,000 members

I want to thank all of the members of the Laboratory Informatics Institute who have helped spread the word about www.limsforum.com to help drive the membership in this Internationally based user’s group. Our membership is now at over 10,000 and we are gaining over 1,000 new members per month.

October 4, 2010 - How much is that doggie (LIMS) in the window?

If you have ever had to purchase a LIMS, you know what a chore it can be.  First there are over 100 LIMS vendors and products to choose from; you have to sort through all those vendors and products and try to find a small, manageable group that can meet your functional and business needs and if that is not hard enough, the fun really begins when you ask…  “How much is that LIMS in the window?”

September 5, 2010 - The VirtuLIMS Project – A collaborative internship program of Poitiers University, The Laboratory Informatics Institute and LabLynx, Inc.

Poitiers University in France had contacted LabLynx, Inc. enquiring about a partnership of some kind where they could have a LIMS to use for teaching purposes. LabLynx, having its webLIMS hosted Software as a Service product readily deployable online, provided its ELab LIMS to Poitiers free of charge, along with help and support in working with it. This gave students the unique opportunity to learn about laboratory informatics first hand. After a successful semester, Claude Goldszmidt at Poitiers requested an internship in Atlanta for one of their students, Aymeric Sarrazin.

August 26, 2010 - Standardization of Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS at Wockhardt UK Delivers Improved Laboratory Efficiencies and GMP Compliance

Wockhardt UK is a diverse pharmaceuticals company created from the merger of CP Pharmaceuticals and the Wallis Laboratory. Its FDA-approved manufacturing facility adopted a laboratory information management system (LIMS) as part of its continuous focus on quality. The company selected Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS(TM) to improve efficiencies and ensure GMP compliance within its UK-based manufacturing facility.