Automating Laboratory Operations by Intergrating Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) with Analytical Instruments and Scientific Data Management System (SDMS)

Abstract

The large volume of data generated by commercial and research laboratories, along with requirements mandated by regulatory agencies, have forced companies to use laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to improve efficiencies in tracking, managing samples, and precisely reporting test results. However, most general purpose LIMS do not provide an interface to automatically collect data from analytical instruments to store in a database. A scientific data management system (SDMS) provides a “Print-to-Database” technology, which facilitates the entry of reports generated by instruments directly into the SDMS database as Windows enhanced metafiles thus to minimize data entry errors. Unfortunately, SDMS does not allow performing further analysis. Many LIMS vendors provide plug-ins for single instrument but none of them provides a general purpose interface to extract the data from SDMS and store in LIMS. In this project, a general purpose middle layer named LabTechie is designed, built and tested for seamless integration between instruments, SDMS and LIMS. This project was conducted at American Institute of Technology (AIT) Laboratories, an analytical laboratory that specializes in trace chemical measurement of biological fluids. Data is generated from 20 analytical instruments, including gas chromatography/mass spectrometer (GC/MS), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometer (LC/MS), and currently stored in NuGenesis SDMS iv (Waters, Milford, MA). This approach can be easily expanded to include additional instruments.