How LIMS Streamline Management in Academic Labs
There are so many tasks necessary to run an academic laboratory that managing one can be extremely difficult. A laboratory information management system (LIMS) offers a perfect way to help ease the workload and reduce the stress of lab management. Accuracy and lab productivity are paramount, and even a LIMS system for small laboratories can deliver enormous benefits.
Here are five specific ways the best LIMS system can be useful in helping manage academic laboratories:
1. Plasmid, Primers, and Oligo Management
Most academic labs have hundreds of primers, plasmid, and other oligos they have ordered or made. Keeping track of locations for all the tubes containing these oligos is a tremendous challenge. Documenting the sequences for all the oligos is nearly impossible. A LIMS is an excellent solution to both problems.
Every member of your lab can utilize a LIMS to store a location, upload the sequences, and record any other useful information, such as a plasmid map. For your laboratory operations, the LIMS is a single, centralized system, ensuring your hard-to-construct plasmids are never lost.
2. Cell Strain Management
Managing cell strains is as equally important and challenging as managing plasmid and primers. A LIMS can be an ideal solution to record the cell strains you have and where they are stored. Cells can be very expensive to order, or challenging to request from another lab, so having this information is essential.
It’s also important to keep track of passage numbers to know how old your cells are, and when you need to acquire fresh cells. Using a LIMS, your lab can also easily record the media and conditions needed to grow each strain.
You can also use a LIMS in academic labs to record the number of aliquots created. Just as a LIMS makes it easy to track your cells’ age, it helps you know when to make more aliquots. There’s no need to dig through your freezers or liquid nitrogen containers to count the number of aliquots you have for each cell strain.
3. Organism Strain Management
Organism strains are some of the most important resources for your academic research, and some of the most difficult to obtain and manage. A well-designed LIMS can help you manage all your organism strains; you can detail the appropriate information on any type of organism (e.g., fruit fly, mouse, yeast), such as the genotype or strain background.
You can also document the location of each strain within a LIMS, and a schedule can be created for your personnel to take care of them. Your investment in organism strains is expensive. That investment is far more secure when you use a LIMS to manage each strain.
4. Reagent and Supply Management
Reagents and consumable supplies are integral to the performance of a lab, and complicated experiments need all the appropriate reagents and supplies to work properly. The best LIMS system can be an extremely effective tool for keeping your lab appropriately stocked with everything you need, and storing reagents where you can easily find them.
In the midst of research, missing or expired reagents and supplies can waste a lot of your time and money. A LIMS with lab supply management functionality helps you keep track of which reagents and supplies are:
- on order
- available for use
- reserved
- close to expiration
- expired
To further optimize your lab productivity, a LIMS can also automatically alert you when new reagents are needed.
5. Equipment and Instrument Management
The best LIMS system can also help you manage the lab equipment and instruments at your academic lab — probably the single largest investment academic laboratories make. Managing that investment should be a high priority.
With a LIMS, you can store all the installation, calibration, and break/fix information for your equipment and instruments. You can upload any relevant controls run with your samples to help track instrument performance over time (e.g. monitoring the raw fluorescent levels on your expensive DNA sequencers to know when you need maintenance on those finicky lasers). Record maintenance performed, schedule preventive maintenance reminders, and store any pertinent log files, all within the LIMS.
Summary: Using a LIMS at Academic Labs
Managing an academic laboratory is a tall order. The environment demands careful tracking of everything from the most comprehensive (and expensive) equipment to every cell strain and organism. Yet, doing this efficiently and successfully is overwhelming, if not impossible, without a LIMS in place. Implementing and using the best LIMS system for your academic lab ensures the quality of your resources and a higher level of lab productivity.
To see how Lockbox LIMS can help you manage your specific academic laboratory, contact us.