Effective Collaborative R&D Requires The Long-term Viability of Analytical Data
Effective Collaborative R&D Requires The Long-term Viability of Analytical Data
Thermo proposes an innovative solution at Pittcon 2004
By James Duckworth, Product Manager, Laboratory Data Management Systems
Life science organizations are searching for more efficient ways to manage scientific information as the volume of data generated by R&D laboratories continues to increase. Modern analytical instruments can now run significantly more complex analyses in a much shorter period of time than was previously possible. Government regulations concerning electronic recordkeeping such as US FDA Rule 21 CFR Part 11 have been a further factor urging organizations in regulated environments to review laboratory processes and systems.
As laboratories automate and make the transition from paper to electronic records, it now becomes imperative to store and manage this data so that it remains viable – that is, so that it can continue to be accessed, analyzed, reprocessed and reutilized by scientists for current and future research projects. When stored in a central location, this repository of analytical data becomes the foundation for an organization’s accumulated scientific knowledge, serving as a valuable business asset that facilitates more streamlined, productive research programs throughout the organization. Thus a long-term strategy of capturing, storing and rendering data from R&D projects accessible to scientists anywhere in the enterprise can provide an important competitive advantage.
Data & Content Management
The vast majority of scientific instruments in laboratories today utilize computers and specialized software to collect and analyze data. Each instrument manufacturer has its own proprietary software generating electronic records that can only be accessed and “read” by that particular system.
The diversity of applications and lack of data format standards have served as roadblocks to the broad distribution and use of scientific information within an organization. To overcome this, a number of vendors have developed compliance-driven data and content management systems that capture printed reports and store them in a central repository. Some systems provide functionality that migrates data from online repositories to an offline storage system, based on when the data was originally captured or created.
The primary value of these products is the ability to store, access and share printed reports with others located throughout the organization. While scientists can derive some benefit from collaborating around these printed reports, researchers need to view, explore and even compare data from different systems to draw genuine conclusions and create results. Such tasks cannot be accomplished with printed images or proprietary instrument software. Because of these limitations, scientific data and content management systems have fallen short of providing the collaborative tools necessary for distributed R&D scientists working with diverse instrument systems. Yet the productivity gains from facilitating true R&D collaboration across often multi-site organizations are potentially enormous.
The need to share and retrospectively review instrument data from a wide variety of sources is a growing issue for large organizations conducting scientific R&D. For teams of scientists in different locations or with different instrument systems and software, collaboration is generally limited to looking at pictures of each other’s data. Collaborating around static printouts of data is often inefficient and inadequate for scientists who need to quickly compare or manipulate data from different systems.
The key to providing a true solution for scientific collaboration is to capture and store analytical data in a manner that preserves its viability. This is possible only if the raw data – as well as the methodology details and accumulated results – can be accurately captured and stored in a secure, central repository.
Neutralized File Format
Another requirement is the conversion of data from different instruments and systems into a neutralized format – one that is independent of specific hardware, software or vendor. Using one data management solution to centrally access and manipulate data gathered from multiple different instrument systems at various geographic sites streamlines operations for a more efficient and productive organization.
Researchers – wherever they are physically located – could easily access and utilize data from this central repository to make decisions on current projects, compare data to previous results, or direct new research initiatives.
Converting data to a neutral file format is the key to maintaining the viability of output from different instruments over time and making it usable throughout the enterprise. A neutral file format would allow researchers to access, view, compare, and share data from a wide variety of instruments regardless of format, location or time since measurement.
XML has garnered a great deal of interest as a technology for creating neutral file formats for analytical data. It was originally developed so that richly structured documents and representations of any type of data could be exchanged between different computing devices, applications, and web sites. The XML language is now recognized as an industry standard for data interchange that accommodates the evolution of operating systems and computer hardware.
Data Access, Analysis and Reprocessing
Thermo Electron Corporation (www.thermo.com ) provides a technology solution that supports data access, analysis and reprocessing – providing distributed scientists a more effective means of collaborating over scientific data. eRecordManager is a fully-enabled Laboratory Data Management System (LDMS) that keeps analytical data viable in a central repository of accumulated research results and provides the tools for sharing and re-utilizing scientific data across the organization.
eRecordManager combines automated data capture, data conversion, database storage and search capabilities with technologies for data analysis, visualization and reprocessing. Such a combination offers scientists the tools to store and manage data in a central location so that it can be easily searched and accessed again at a later date – even if different instruments and software are used. The Web-based design allows scientists to analyze and compare data directly from their desktops. The need for scientists to recreate or duplicate experiments may be a thing of the past.
Developing knowledge in scientific research is a process based on sharing information in such a way that group learning is facilitated.
Through making data and the derived conclusions readily available and easy to find for corporate personnel as a whole, an organization’s ability to exploit new scientific developments and advance ahead of their competitors is greatly improved.
Thermo will highlight eRecordManager LDMS this week in Chicago. For information on Thermo’s comprehensive suite of informatics products, visit booth #1475 in the main exhibit hall and also booth #848 in the Laboratory Informatics exhibit area. Additionally, Thermo informatics specialists are giving technical papers at Pittcon 2004 on a variety of issues relating to LIMS enterprise integration, information management, validation and compliance issues.
For further press information please contact: Kath Darlington on email [email]pr@scottmail.co.uk[/email]
Please send all leads from this editorial FAO: Adrian Fergus on e-mail [email]info@thermoinformatics.com[/email]
For more information please call Thermo Electron on 866-463-6522 or e-mail info@thermoinformatics.com
About Informatics
A worldwide leader in laboratory informatics software and services, Thermo Electron offers LIMS, chromatography data systems, analytical data archival, and instrument integration solutions to customers in a wide range of regulated and non-regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, petrochemicals, chemicals, and food and beverage. We also provide desktop spectroscopy software for data processing, data management, 3D data viewing, spectral reference databases, and chemometrics. Thermo delivers solutions in 23 languages in over 50 countries. For more information, visit www.thermo.com/informatics
About Thermo Electron Corporation
A world leader in high-tech instruments, Thermo Electron Corporation helps life science, laboratory, and industrial customers advance scientific knowledge, enable drug discovery, improve manufacturing processes, and protect people and the environment with instruments, scientific equipment, services, and software solutions. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Electron has revenues of more than $2 billion, and employs approximately 11,000 people in 30 countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.thermo.com .
For further press information please contact: Kath Darlington, PR Director, The Scott Partnership, The Old Barn, Holly House Estate, CRANAGE, Middlewich, Cheshire CW10 9LT, United Kingdom Tel: + 44 1606 837787 Fax: +44 1606 837757 E-mail: pr@scottmail.co.uk
