Smart Information Biology Environment for Pre-clinical and Clinical Research

A Smart Information Biology Environment for managing data, metadata and information is a step closer towards enabling precision medicine and health. We have built a comprehensive web-based experimental environment that provides support and infrastructure to computational and wet-lab experimental research in immunology, infectious and autoimmune diseases. The smart technologies facilitate and streamline research efforts and include a combination of data management, laboratory information management systems, real-time data processing, data sharing, and Web portal.

The new system leverages and extends the open source software LABKEY, a highly customizable electronic notebook and laboratory management information (LIMS) system for real time data-acquisition, data analysis, collaboration, and for publication of raw and processed data. New features include an improved custom interface to allow quicker project data-entry while also ensuring greater regulatory compliance and public repository (i.e., Immport, GEO) specifications, as well as modules customized for pre-clinical, clinical and in silico research to advance product development.

Improved more intuitive and adaptive graphic user interfaces have been developed to ease the experimental design and project set-up stages; these improvements help the user create and track subjects, subject treatments, and biological samples more efficiently by replacing manual data entry individually, automates several data entry steps, avoids having to add the same information in several places, and therefore improves quality and efficiency.

The new module showcases a more unified menu system. Users no longer have to navigate multiple menu tables and context-sensitive options to find information relevant to their studies. The new architectural paradigm has empowered users to quickly and effortlessly enter and manage research data and metadata.

The system has been instrumental for the success of the MIEP program, where >6TB of data/metadata have been generated, archived, managed and shared over the past five years. LabKey is HIPAA compliant, which makes it even more valuable for larger multi-center consortia with clinical data.

The software can be downloaded here.

About NIMML

The NIMML Institute is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public charity foundation focused on a transdisciplinary, team-science approach to precision medicine at the interface of immunology, inflammation, and metabolism. The NIMML Institute team has led numerous large-scale transdisciplinary projects and is dedicated to solving important societal problems by combining the expertise of immunologists, computational biologists, toxicologists, modelers, translational researchers, and molecular biologists. The Institute is headquartered in Blacksburg, VA. For more information, please visit www.nimml.org or contact pio@nimml.org.