Laboratory Data Management Bottleneck Overcome with ACD/Automation Server

Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) unveils the latest release of ACD/Automation Server, an enterprise utility that meets the processing and analysis challenges faced by today’s laboratory via automated data collection, processing, and database population.

Dr. Eric Milgram, Enterprise Solutions Product Manager at ACD/Labs, illustrates the challenges faced by stating, “Scientific laboratories face continual pressure to become more productive, whether by processing more samples per unit time with fixed resources or processing a constant level of samples with decreasing numbers of personnel.”

He furthers, “Advances in hardware automation, such as autosamplers and sample-preparation robots, combined with increased robustness of analytical instrumentation have helped scientists meet part of the productivity challenge. However, most software for processing analytical data was developed with an ‘interactive’ user in mind, and as a result, the laboratory bottleneck has shifted from data collection activities to data processing and analysis.”

ACD/Automation Server helps reduce this bottleneck by combining a modular architecture with the flexibility of an XML-based configuration utility to programmatically expose the powerful features of ACD/SpecManager tools, which include analytical data processing, chromatographic and spectral databasing, and intelligent integration of chemical structure and analytical data. In addition to giving access to powerful analytical processing tools, ACD/Automation Server also enables greater processing flexibility by incorporating ACD/ChemBasic. In addition to supporting a syntax that is similar to Microsoft® Visual Basic®, ACD/ChemBasic was developed specifically for working with chemical structures. By exposing these powerful analytical processing capabilities and offering ACD/ChemBasic, ACD/Automation Server is a very flexible tool that can be tailored to fit very specific, challenging problems within an organization.

Modules are available for processing NMR (1D and 2D), LC/MS, UV-Vis, IR, Raman, XRPD, DSC, TGA, as well as a variety of other analytical data types. In addition to supporting multiple analytical techniques, ACD/Automation Server also supports analytical data from a wide selection of instrumentation vendors.

Dr. Milgram comments, “With the introduction of ACD/Automation Server, ACD/Labs is building upon our legacy of providing sophisticated ChemAnalyticsâ„¢ tools for processing analytical data and, where necessary, integrating these data with chemical structures. ACD/Automation Server was developed for organizations that have a need for powerful ChemAnalytics solutions in conjunction with unsurpassed flexibility of implementation.”

Dr. Antony Williams, Vice President and Chief Science Officer at ACD/Labs, adds, “ACD/Labs’ tools for analytical data processing, true integration with chemical structures, and databasing of the extracted knowledge have delivered solutions to organizations for over a decade. With the introduction of ACD/Automation Server, ACD/Labs is providing support for those processes depending on automation, especially open access and higher-throughput laboratories. This year we will be making additional announcements demonstrating the benefits of such an approach to many sectors of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry as ACD/Labs continues to develop the ChemAnalytics platform.”

About Advanced Chemistry Development

Advanced Chemistry Development, Inc., (ACD/Labs) is a chemistry software company offering solutions that truly integrate chemical structures with analytical chemistry information to produce ChemAnalyticsâ„¢. ACD/Labs creates innovative software packages that aid chemical research scientists worldwide with spectroscopic validation of structures, elucidation of unknown substances, chromatographic separation, medicinal chemistry, preformulation of novel drug agents, systematic nomenclature generation, and chemical patenting and publication. Combined, ACD/Labs’ solutions create an analytical informatics system that provides dramatic feed-forward effects on the chemical and pharmaceutical research process. Founded in 1993, and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, ACD/Labs employs a team of over 100 dedicated individuals whose continual efforts carry ACD/Labs’ innovative technologies into pharmaceutical, biotech, chemical, and materials companies throughout the world. Information about Advanced Chemistry Development and its products is available at www.acdlabs.com .