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By John Trigg, on December 30th, 2011 The latest article in my column on the Pharma IQ site has just been published. You can read the full article here: Peace in our Time? R&D and the IT Department
The intro:
One of the consequences of the increasing convergence of science and technology is the nature of the relationship between R&D and IT. As scientists increasingly depend on information technology as an integral component of laboratory work, they become increasingly dependent on the IT infrastructure and IT resources. It hasn’t always been like this; in the days when most laboratory computers were basically standalone devices, dedicated to specific data acquisition and/or data processing tasks, life was a lot simpler; scientists could tinker with their systems whilst IT managed the mainframes. But inevitably, as the demand grew to connect things together and transfer data from one system to another, it became necessary to start a relationship with the IT Department. And so began a courtship that, to all outward appearances, was not made in heaven…………..
Just as the article was published, I came across a contribution on the ComputerWorld website entitled: IT managers are aloof, insular, says psychologist. The article was making a very different point,with which I don’t agree; I’ve worked with a number of IT Managers who are far from being aloof and insular. (The article generated a fair amount of comment, probably from outraged IT Managers!). So, in defence of IT Managers, and to reinforce my point in my article, the IT Department has specific responsibilities that demand a good deal of care and caution in order to maintain a robust and reliable infrastructure. The IT ‘culture’ is therefore quite different to an R&D environment where innovation and creativity are key qualities, and it is this difference in cultures, not aloofness and insularity that can cause some of the tension between R&D and IT.
By John Trigg, on November 18th, 2011 The 9th Forum on Laboratory Informatics was held in San Diego, November 14-16th 2011. The programme embraced a set of three workshops and a two-day session of presentations. Here is a brief review of some of the presentations, with an emphasis on matters relating to laboratory integration.
The opening presentation by Martin Vaderlaan and Eugene Kim (Roche-Genenthech) described approaches taken to integrate LIMS, ELN and Robotics in their laboratories. The presentation served to highlight the benefits of laboratory integration, but emphasised the cost in terms of effort; ten custom interfaces built, requiring three different coding languages. Joe Liscouski (Institute for Laboratory Information) discussed the work of the Institute for Laboratory Automation in developing methodologies and training programmes to address some of the deficiencies in formal education curricula. The ILA now has a membership scheme that offers members the opportunity to collaborate and help define the ILA’s programmes.
Steven Shea (Allergan) described the extension of a commercial Scientific Data Management System to incorporate generic Electronic Lab Notebook functions. The inclusion, management and storage in the SDMS database of MS Office documents (Word/Excel) addressed authoring and worksheet requirements for the laboratory workflow. This presentation identified yet another hybrid approach to address laboratory information management requirements.
IT innovation in the R&D arena was the subject of a presentation by Sanjoy Ray (Merck and Co. Inc.), who described a methodology for driving improvement in IT tools available to R&D workers in Merck. The methodology was derived from the ‘scientific method’, initiated by hypothesis and proceeding via a phased approach towards delivery of a ‘solution’. The presentation addressed a number of cultural and behavioural issues experienced in establishing and deploying the process.
The adoption of standards in the Clinical/Health sector was addressed in two presentations by Sandra Vance (HIMSS) and Daniel Vreeman (Regenstrief Institute). Sandra Vance described the work of HIMSS in advocating and facilitating the adoption of standards, with particular emphasis on clinical laboratories. Of particular interest was the process by which HIMSS engages and encourages vendors to participate and adopt standards through major ‘connectathon’ events in which developers from different vendors sit side-by-side to write and test code to ensure compliance and connectivity.
Daniel Vreeman discussed LOINC® (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes), a standard for the exchange and pooling of results for clinical care, outcomes management, and research. Although most laboratories and clinical services use HL7 to transmit results electronically from their reporting systems to their care systems, the information in these messages are often rendered non-standard due internal inconsistencies of code values. LOINC codes are universal identifiers for laboratory and other clinical observations that provide a common terminology that solves this problem.
My presentation on the Challenges Facing Laboratory Integration is available here:
By John Trigg, on November 10th, 2011 The Institute for Laboratory Automation has announced a membership scheme.
Lab automation technologies can transform lab work. Before we can reap those benefits we have to transform the way people approach lab automation. That is what this organization is about: helping people learn how to plan, implement, evaluate and use the products & technologies available to them.
Laboratory automation has become a cooperative process between scientists and those specializing in the implementation of automation systems. This includes scientists, information technology specialists, vendors, developers, robotics’ specialist, etc. As an organization, the membership work of the ILA is to bring these people together so that they can:
- understand each others perspectives,
- devise methodologies to get work done,
- discuss products and their application, and
- develop the tools (education, methodologies, etc.) needed to turn lab automation into a successful pursuit.
To that end, we believe:
- that those working in the field need to form a community to develop and improve the practice of applying automation and information/computing technologies to lab and scientific work.
- In addition we see the establishment of Laboratory Automation Engineering as a field of work, study, and research, as a necessary goal.
For more information visit: http://www.institutelabauto.org/membership/membershp.html
To join: http://instituteforlaboratoryautomation.camp8.org/
By Peter Boogaard, on October 30th, 2011  Is the cloud ready to cross the chasm in R&D? The latest weather forecasts predict more clouds on the horizon in R&D. What is your answer? Leaving our umbrella home? IndustrialLabAutomation, interviewed industry experts about their view deploying cloud services. The article includes a handy cloud summary table. Read more and get your latest weather forecast…
By John Trigg, on October 3rd, 2011 The Leahy Smith America Invents Act was signed by President Obama on 16th September 2011, bringing to culmination a succession of proposed revisions to Patent Law in the US. However, some commentators are expecting the new act to be subjected to revision as a consequence of concerns about potential loopholes. As far as laboratory notebooks are concerned, the switch from first-to-invent to first-to-file would seem to offer some relaxation over the requirements for experiment documentation and witnessing. So, two viewpoints on this: Firstly, in order to comply with first-to-file, the current requirements for the documentation of experiments are quite consistent with good scientific practice and basically make good scientific sense. As such they provide a trustworthy account of inventions, with appropriate authenticity and integrity, sufficient to stand up to adverse scrutiny in a law court. From a sound business and scientific viewpoint, would we really want to back away from this standard of documentation? With science becoming increasingly subject to scrutiny for environmental, health and peer review reasons, forsaking a sound documentation approach doesn’t make sense.
The second viewpoint is that expressed by Colin Sandercock (Perkins Coie LLP) at the recent IQPC ELN conference in Barcelona. This is a brief summary of the points that Colin raised:
(1) Interferences may continue in force for many years and involve inventions made after March 16 2013.
Some of the wording of the new act would potentially lead to interferences and interfering patent actions continuing for many years. More specifically, preserving the right to an interference requires only that the application ‘contains or contained at any time’ a claim to an invention having an effective filing date that occurs before March 16, 2013, or a specific reference (under section 120, 121 0r 365(c) of title 35, United States Code) to any patent or application that contains or contained at any time such a claim.
(2) Derivation proceedings will replace interferences for certain types of inventorship disputes
Derivation requires proof of prior conception and communication to the competing inventor(s). i.e. records may be critical in proving derivation or defending against a derivation claim.
(3) Proof of inventive activities may be needed to remove prior art under exception for joint research activities.
For more detail about the Leahy Smith America Invents Act :
America Invents Act of 2011
Leahy-Smith America Invents Act Implementation
Patent Reform’s ‘Brave New World’ (from Bio-IT World)
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