Presentation

The Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) is accelerating biomedical research by closing the link between systems biology and medical research. Collaboration between biologists, medical doctors, computer scientists, physicists and mathematicians is offering new insights in complex systems like cells, organs, and organisms. These insights are essential for understanding principal mechanisms of disease pathogenesis and for developing new tools in diagnostics and therapy.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease, metabolomics and disease network analysis are in the focus of LCSB’s research. Within Luxembourg, the LCSB is building upstrong partnerships with all major biological and medical research units. Key strategic partnership has been set-up with the ISB in Seattle. This cooperation is enabling a rapid scientific evolution. The LCSB fosters collaboration with industrial partners and will be a focal point for developing a knowledge based economy in Luxembourg.

The LCSB has put in place a support group to enable the researchers to focus on their research. All the logistics of about 250 researchers is organized by the Support biotech team using the LabCollector LIMS software. A reagent to buy, equipment to book, a sample to find… everything runs smoothly in a few clicks.

Equipped since 2011 with a full version of LabCollector and the Electronic Lab Notebook, we have progressively developed the software by adding:

• Customizable modules, for example one for labcoats management (clean out/clean back) used with mobile device.
• Add-on Scheduler (see below)
• Add-on Data Logger (see below)
• Groups to manage our constant evolution in term of scientific projects

Equipment and monitoring

LabCollector has helped us to list all the equipment in laboratories, from the pipette to the microscope, and in particular to manage their maintenance and reservation. Via the Equipment module, we have listed a thousand of equipment, including 150 machines for cold storage. Directly via this module, researchers can find the equipment needed for their experimentation and reserve it. Link to the Scheduler add-on, all reservations can be centralized and are accessible by all the members.

Since recently, we finished the monitoring of cold storage equipment and begin to monitor our incubators. We are now about 200 devices equipped with sensors for temperature, humidity, pressure, etc. The persons responsible for the maintenance of these facilities are directly alerted by email and GSM if temperature is outside thresholds.

Purchase order management

Our logistic group is responsible of purchase order management, shipment organization, common disposables ordering, delivery and dispatching, and budget follow up, among many others tasks. That’s why use LabCollector for all these time-consuming but indispensable processes helps us to better manage the large number of orders: more than 6,000 for 2015 with 84 different budgets.

Moreover, in 2016, our university changes all the system of budget management. We are no dealing with about 150 budget codes and AgileBio team has been responsive to their implementation.

News for 2016 and more

ELN – Even if we purchased the Electronic Lab Notebook in 2011, it’s only now that researchers attempt to deal with it. First, the passage of the paper version to the electronic version is not easy for all, and the first version of the ELN from AgileBio did not get the vote of all members. Since 2016, a new version is, in our opinion, more accessible and easy to use. We will try again!

Zebrafish Aquarium – Our Zebrafish breeding responsible is currently evaluating the Aquarium add-on to manage all the aspect in this type of breeding: management of racks, fish identity card, fish in/out, and documentation… Some adjustments will probably be necessary but the add-on already meets many of our criteria.

With more than 15000 samples data sheets well identified with a unique number, we can not imagine going back to an excel file management!

Mrs Monnoye, technician in Dr Boulanger’s team.

“ I work in the transgenesis facility in the « Biologie du développement et reproduction » unit in the INRA research center of Jouy en Josas.  I produce more than 20 new plasmids each week and i manage each intermediate plasmid in order to reuse them in other projects.

For this work, LabCollector helps me each day in my research work.
I am today responsible to form new users to LabCollector.  I am also responsible of the quality in our team and LC is my first help and i find new applications to manage quality in our team. The last one is the management of the paper lab note books in the unit with the documents’s module of LabCollector.  We can associate, for example the team manager, the student, the project with key words and many other informations concerning each note book.  Then, with the unique number associated with each data sheet of LC and that we write on the note books , it is very easy to find them back. ”

LabCollector and selected accessories bring seamless sample storage!

“ We bought a computer on which a small label printer BRADY and a 2D barcode reader are connected.  This system is situated directly in our lab in order to control samples and print the labels near the work bench.  ”

To save an place in a box for one sample, it is as easy as a scan in your supermarket just choose a place in the storage browser, and scan the label.  The data sheet will be associated to the selected place.

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“ We still need to make some manual activities for sticking the labels on small tubes but it is also possible to use prelabelled plastic tubes and use the preprinted 1D barcode in labcollector in order to associate a sample data sheet with a tube.
In the storage browser, you can see the filling ratio of your boxes like when you are usually in front of your freezer.  We sometimes print the plane of the box for control of each sample. ”

The unique identification number also concerns the box for your samples. Each box has a unique number and a unique position in all the storage freezers.
It’s now not necessary anymore to stay in front of your minus 80 freezer trying to know where is your box!

Topped with the Electronic Lab Notebook add-on!

“ We use the electronic lab notebook for follow our experiments.  The possibility to share, print and save our books in a PDF format is much more easier to work with than with a paper book. We can transfer pictures of agarose gels, results of immunochemistry , maps of plasmids etc.  It is also possible to make a link between an experiment page with our samples managed by LabCollector.  It is theneasy to find back the good sample associated with one experiment. ”