Using an electronic lab notebook at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
- 1. Technology in the Lab: Electronic Lab Notebooks A brief case study Jeff Roizen MD PhD roizenj@chop.edu The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
- 2. Roadmap • Background – My goals and my (brief) lab history • What you need in a lab notebook (un-belabored). • What I have done with eCAT
- 3. 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
- 4. My (brief) lab history 2 1.8 1.6 • Currently 1.4 1.2 1 control 0.8 obese 0.6 0.4 0.2 – Basic research on 0 13 week 15 week 21 week 24 week • 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
- 5. 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
- 6. 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.
- 7. The next iteration • A scanner • A smartpen and a notebook • An electronic lab notebook (an ELN - eCAT)
- 8. 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
- 9. 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.
- 10. Workflow • Plan • Mtg or not – • Assign myself tasks • Protocol template • Expt template • Link to spreadsheet • Link to protocol • Link to references • Record
- 11. 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
- 12. 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)
- 13. 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.