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.