title: Challenges in small screening laboratories: implementing an on-demand laboratory information management system.
abstract: The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, includes a laboratory devoted to High Content Analysis (HCA) of neurons. The goal of the laboratory is to uncover signaling pathways, genes, compounds, or drugs that can be used to promote nerve growth. HCA permits the quantification of neuronal morphology, including the lengths and numbers of axons. HCA of various libraries on primary neurons requires a team-based approach, a variety of process steps and complex manipulations of cells and libraries to obtain meaningful results. HCA itself produces vast amounts of information including images, well-based data and cell-based phenotypic measures. Documenting and integrating the experimental workflows, library data and extensive experimental results is challenging. For academic laboratories generating large data sets from experiments involving thousands of perturbagens, a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is the data tracking solution of choice. With both productivity and efficiency as driving rationales, the Miami Project has equipped its HCA laboratory with an On Demand or Software As A Service (SaaS) LIMS to ensure the quality of its experiments and workflows. The article discusses how the system was selected and integrated into the laboratory. The advantages of a SaaS based LIMS over a client-server based system are described.
authors.affiliation: Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Center for Computational Sciences, John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1095 NW 14th Ter., LPLC, Rm 4-16 R-48, Miami, Fl 33136-1060, USA. vlemmon@med.miami.edu
authors.forename: Vance P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Lemmon
authors.forename: Yuanyuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: S Douglas
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Holbrook
authors.forename: John L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bixby
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Buchser
mesh_terms: D002984:Clinical Laboratory Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D007753:Laboratories / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010243:Paralysis / Q000628:therapy