A hosted electronic notebook for life scientists

By John McCarthy

How an online hosted ELN helps scientists do more with less in the lab.

Life scientists and lab managers are increasingly embracing electronic lab notebooks (ELNs) for many reasons. First and foremost, today's highly configurable ELN supports the diverse needs of the many life science disciplines that must collaborate to bring small molecule drugs and biologicals to market, and the right ELN does this without requiring expensive customization. The ELN has proven itself vastly superior to the paper notebook as a truly effective tool for securely documenting the design, execution, analysis and reporting of experimental information in the context of researchers' workflows. Furthermore, centrally accessible and searchable notebook repositories enable life scientists to share information and improve experiment design by taking advantage of their colleagues' insights. Today's ELN consolidates experimental data, reduces errors, enhances workflow productivity by driving consistent processes, simplifies regulatory compliance, protects intellectual property (IP) and drives collaboration within and across labs.

In a time of shrinking budgets and constrained resources, the ELN is helping life sciences R&D groups of all sizes do more with less. Scientists with whom we are working claim a 20 percent increase in productivity through efficiency gains in experiment setup, calculations, planning and documentation, along with the ability to find information instantly and 'clone' previous experiments. Most importantly, deploying a single ELN across many disciplines - and the entire R&D spectrum-improves R&D productivity by letting all scientists collaborate in an orchestrated workflow process. Given the shifting priorities within today's R&D environment, a rapidly deployable, highly configurable ELN also provides the operational flexibility to start new projects, define new processes and transfer resources rapidly and easily.

ELN deployment and improved collaboration

R&D organizations have traditionally relied on a conventional license-based software model for acquiring ELN applications, but today's economic and competitive pressures are leading many organizations to consider a new model in which the ELN is hosted offsite and accessed as a subscription-based service online. Under this model, all that scientists need is an internet connection and a password to gain instant access to a shared ELN that is fully supported and maintained by the supplier. 

The hosted ELN is a great option for small and mid-size life sciences labs, biotechnology companies and academic project teams. They do not have to purchase expensive software licenses or manage extensive server banks with security, redundancy, data backup and maintenance. They also do not have to support resource-draining system administration teams and the change control documentation required by system auditors.

The research expenditures required to carry out specialized testing in today's market are burdensome. As a result, to reduce costs and shorten the path to more robust, promising pipelines, life science teams of all sizes are partnering with outside organizations that offer specialized expertise. In essence, this move to collaborative outsourcing is enabling labs to do more with others.

The hosted ELN is especially valuable in supporting transparent partner engagements. When a partner performing initial screening or animal studies for an R&D lab returns its results in a shared, hosted ELN environment, the R&D lab doesn't just receive a spreadsheet of data. The lab also accesses the protocol, methodology, sample preparation and other related information used by the partner, thereby gaining a much broader and deeper view into the overall context of the outsourced project. By linking into a shared, hosted informatics environment, multi-disciplinary virtual teams can quickly and easily access the same information, use the same methodologies and work together more effectively.

For further discussion, please see our longer online article on today's flexible ELN for multidisciplinary life science teams at www.ngpharma.com.

For more information, visit www.symyx.com.

John McCarthy is VP Product Management Strategy with Symyx's software business unit. Symyx electronic laboratory notebook, decision support, scientific database and hosted informatics offerings give researchers immediate access to critical workflow applications and information. Symyx powers R&D laboratories with information that generates insight, enhances collaboration and drives productivity.