Jeff Roizen MD PhD

roizenj@chop.edu

The Children’s Hospital of

Philadelphia

Technology in the Lab:

Electronic Lab Notebooks

A brief case study

Roadmap

• Background – My goals

and my (brief) lab history

• What you need in a lab

notebook (un-belabored).

• What I have done with eCAT

Goals/Objectives

• Overview of my science ->how

I came to an ELN

• Outline of needs for ELN

• Describe my workflow

• Avoid too many screen shots

My (brief) lab history

• Currently

– Basic research on • 25OHD and obesity and aging

• Diabetes and the brain

– Translational research on • 25OHD and the polymorphisms

in the 25 hydroxylase

– Clinical research on • Albrights Hereditary Osteodystrophy,

obesity and resting energy expenditure

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2

13week 15week 21week 24week

control

obese

My initial approach to

organizization • “Clutter is

death” – Randy Pausch

• Several notebooks

• Data waiting to go into notebook (unanalyzed)

• Data analyzed and waiting to go into notebook

• This leads to

The paperless lab

• A lab notebook needs

– To allow others to

repeat or continue

your work.

• To record immutably

– Purpose

– How and when

– Materials used

– Results

– Where the originals

(reagents, pics) are

Butler D. Electronic notebooks: A new leaf. Nature. Nature Publishing

Group; 2005Jul.7;436(7047):20–1.

The next iteration

• A scanner

• A smartpen

and a

notebook

• An electronic

lab notebook

(an ELN -

eCAT)

What I need and want

• Multiple platforms – Mac and Windows

• Editable anywhere – Our lab, the next lab, home.

• Attach everything for one expt to one file. – refs, results, reagents,

sample locations

• Templatable

• Can do calculations

• Searchable

• Push me to work (enable planning)

• Auditable

The paperless lab: eCAT

• Templatable – My template for a

protocol

– My western protocol made using that template

– Within my western protocol there is a link to a folder (on their server) with my western spreadsheet template.

Workflow

• Plan • Mtg or not –

• Assign myself tasks

• Protocol template

• Expt template • Link to spreadsheet

• Link to protocol

• Link to references

• Record

Inventory

• Sample and aloquat management

• Can generate locations and sublocations (with pics)

• Can create different sets of information templates for different kinds of samples

• Can link to from experiments

• Can print Barcodes to label tubes

Work back for PI or next

researcher • Searchable

– Can limit search by type of record or kind of sample

• Can share a project (and sub-experiments and sub-samples) with whoever you prefer

• Printable

• Auditable

• Online user guide (www.axiope.com has videos for anything you might want to do)

Conclusion:

• We always

overestimate the

change that will occur

in the next two years

and underestimate

the change that will

occur in the next ten.

–Bill Gates

Giles J. Going paperless: The digital lab. Nature. 2012Jan.26;:430–1.