A journey through the
ELN jungle
Simon Coles
CTO
http://www.amphora-research.com/ 1

http://www.amphora-research.com/ 2

Copies of these slides
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About Amphora
• Started in ELNs in 1996
• Globally deployed, fully electronic ELN
for Kodak
• Grew from there...
• Now work with large & small companies
• Biotechs, Pharma, Chemicals
http://www.amphora-research.com/ 3

Who we work with
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Who we work with
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Industry
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What we do
• Patent Evidence Creation & Preservation
• Make lawyers happy
• Which means you can make scientists
happy
http://www.amphora-research.com/ 6

What we do
• Sometimes our stuff is used...
• Standalone
• In conjunction with other “ELN”
products
• With in house systems
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Choice time
• A discussions about the differences that
make a difference
• Some thoughts about what to do beyond
chemistry
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jungle
noun
an area of land overgrown with dense forest and tangled
vegetation, typically in the tropics
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Welcome to the Jungle
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electronic lab notebook
noun
whatever a vendor has to sell
whatever the programmer wants to write
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Audience Survey
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Audience Survey
• Do you have a Med. Chem ELN project (in
progress or complete?)
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Audience Survey
• Do you have a Med. Chem ELN project (in
progress or complete?)
• Do you have other kinds of scientists?
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Audience Survey
• Do you have a Med. Chem ELN project (in
progress or complete?)
• Do you have other kinds of scientists?
• Are you deploying into
• A regulated environment
• A discovery environment
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The ELN journey
(In two Acts)
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Act I
• Chemists are the most vocal, and can
demonstrate some kind ROI
• And you can buy one! From multiple vendors!
• Let’s do that then... I’m sure once we’ve done that
we can re-use it for our other scientists
• Because they all use notebooks, right?
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Meanwhile...
Everyone else is getting on with business
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Act II
• Happy chemists
• Generally, band-aided the Patent problem
• Now, we’ve got an ELN
• The rest of them want one too
• So given we’ve already got one
• Easy decision?
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Typical Reactions
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Typical Reactions
• “We don’t work like that”
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Typical Reactions
• “We don’t work like that”
• “I doesn’t work with our applications”
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Typical Reactions
• “We don’t work like that”
• “I doesn’t work with our applications”
• “Why should we bother”
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Typical Reactions
• “We don’t work like that”
• “I doesn’t work with our applications”
• “Why should we bother”
• “Very Expensive”
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Typical Reactions
• “We don’t work like that”
• “I doesn’t work with our applications”
• “Why should we bother”
• “Very Expensive”
• “You’ve made Excel harder to use”
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What’s going on?
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Why an ELN?
• Because the existing solution sucks
• Cut & Stick computer printouts
• Can’t search (like Google)
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Why an ELN?
• “Easily use computer applications in the
course of our work”
• “Search our work”
• “See other people’s work”
• “If our discipline does special stuff, deal with
that”
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The “special stuff”
• Organic Chemistry has a clear, widely-used
notation which rewards specific support
• There’s a Cheminformatics industry!
• Other disciplines do too
• But they’re much more specialised
• Can often be represented as text of
graphics
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What they didn’t say
• “Replace the applications I use day-to-day”
• In fact, they want an ELN to make using
those easier!
• “Make my life more complex”
• “Give me stuff I don’t need”
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The result
• Chemistry-centric ELNs don’t tend to be well
received outside of Chemistry
• Frustrating for involved
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Note
• Science is very broad
• I am generalising
• Your mileage may vary
• I’m just trying to help people think
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Science is huge
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Different Styles
• Chemistry tends to be pretty structured and
routine
• Other disciplines have much greater variation
in the work
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Tools
• Chemistry tends to focus on the structures,
reactions, properties, drawing & animating
them etc.
• Other disciplines have a much wider set of
tools
• And use Excel as a “Swiss Army Knife”
• Scientists are knowledge workers too
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Less is more
From http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/week30/index.html

Part of the problem is
the term
“ELN”
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Questions
• If the paper notebook didn’t exist would we
coin the term “Electronic” notebook?
• If it wasn’t for the term “ELN” would we look
for one system?
• Why are all the “ELN” vendors (outside of
chemistry) so different?
• Where are the non-chemistry ELNs?
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Where do they work?
• Excel • In-house experiment
planning tools
• Word
• Lotus Notes
• Filemaker
• OneNote
• InfoPath/SharePoint
• LIMS
• ISIS/Draw
• ERP
• Wikis
• File Servers
• Blogging tools (e.g.
Wordpress)
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What are they doing?
• Experiments - just like everyone else
• Just because they aren’t working in a product
with “ELN” stamped on it, doesn’t mean it
isn’t proper science
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As a rule, it is much
better if you pay
attention to each
discipline individually
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The “One System” death
magnet
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One solution?
User quote:
Anyone who claims one
solution solves all problems...
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One solution?
User quote:
Anyone who claims one
solution solves all problems...
...is a salesman
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Do you need one
solution?
• Not unless you buy something crazily
proprietary
• In which case you probably don’t want it
anyway
• Integration is a fact of life
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Can you buy One
Solution?
• Yes, if you only do one kind of science
• Yes, if you are prepared to do an awful lot of
customisation
• Yes, if architecture is more important than
users
• Yes if you will never change what you do
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Some Suggestions
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Project Structure
• Divide your problem into
• Corporate aspects
• Different disciples
• Solve the corporate stuff centrally
• Let the different user groups do what they
need to do
• Encourage/enforce collaboration
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A framework
Corporate aspects
(Records, IP protection, Sharing)
Medicinal Chemistry
Process Chemistry
Molecular Biology
Pharmacology
Etc.
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The “Deep” systems
• If they use structures, they’ll probably want
one of the Chemistry-centric ELNs
• If they aren’t look at what they have already
• You might be able to leave them alone
• Just give them something to keep the
lawyers happy
• This will hopefully be low-impact
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“Deep Systems”
• More than one group might find the same
system acceptable - great!
• You might want tools from Rescentris, IDBS,
Klee etc. to support specific aspects of their
work
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“Deep Systems”
• If you do a good job
• Everyone gets their ideal work
environment
• You disrupt them as little as possible
• You’ve left the door open for future
improvements
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Some questions you
might ask...
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What about Array?
• They are essentially using CS as an
integration platform
• Unusually high investment in informatics and
spend it wisely
• They got to start from scratch
• Environment dominated by Chemists
• One front end works well (PatentSafe as an
IP backend)
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What about GxP
• The needs of GxP & 21CFR11 mandate
record keeping at the activity level
• You can’t do this Broad Vs Deep model
• I’m not sure there’s such a thing as a Generic
ELN for regulated areas
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What about Raw Data?
• ELN isn’t the place for raw data
• From a records aspect
• From a practical aspect
• ELN can provide metadata
• But store it somewhere else (filesystems are
nice!)
• Records Retention matters...!
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Isn’t this expensive?
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Isn’t this expensive?
• Not if you’ve already got perfectly acceptable
solutions already
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Isn’t this expensive?
• Not if you’ve already got perfectly acceptable
solutions already
• The ROI on software you don’t have to buy is
outstanding!
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Are you on Drugs?
• A large number of end-user companies have
similar approaches
• Most of the case studies are “Deep” systems
• Ultimately, this is a much-simplified version of
the CENSA architecture
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Benefits of taking a
Broad & Deep
approach
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You get to be a
hero/heroine
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Finding the money is
easier
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Training is easier/non-
existent
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You have a balanced
relationship with your
vendors
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You can roll out in
phases
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Your lawyers won’t
dictate what you do
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...Thank You...
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