Mission, History, Structure and Direction of Laboratory Robotics Interest Group (LRIG)

1. LRIG
“Connecting laboratory automation users since 1981”
LRIG Philadelphia
October 8, 2015
Andy Zaayenga, LRIG Executive Chair

2. What is LRIG?
 LRIG is a not-for-profit professional
society focused on laboratory
automation in life sciences
 Our membership consists of over
15,000 scientists, engineers,
laboratory automation professionals
and students.

3. Our Mission
The LRIG mission is to provide and facilitate instruction for both self-development and
the benefit of the laboratory automation community. To do this, we:
Provide physical and virtual meeting places for scientists, engineers and academics
interested in furthering their careers and the field of laboratory automation.
Facilitate communication among users and providers of laboratory automation.
Provide a platform to encourage an open discussion of new automation techniques and
technologies that can be beneficial to the laboratory automation community.
Share current best practices and experiences in the design and implementation of
laboratory automation.
Encourage members to actively contribute, via the use of presentations and discussion
groups.
Evaluate new technologies / instruments and share our findings at regional meetings,
discussion groups and with on-line presentations archive.

4. Why participate?
 Technology
 Community
 Share
 Learn
 Help
 Science Network
 Business Network
 Social Network
 Advance the state of
the art
 Your membership and
relationships in LRIG
follow you throughout
your career, wherever
you move

5. But first, some history
 LRIG started in the early 1980’s, concurrent with
the emergence of Zymark robotics, as a user
group within Johnson & Johnson in Raritan NJ.
 The first organizers were Alan Greenberg and
Richard Young in AR&D.
 Subsequently, other researchers in local
companies expanded the group. Schering,
Novartis and Warner Lambert joined – notable
pioneers were Larry Lorenz, Bob Foster, and Ed
Kanczewski.

6. Gathering steam
 By the mid-1990’s we had over 200 members
and felt quite ambitious!
 Meetings were typically held in a conference
room at one of the local pharmas – if we had
35 attendees it was considered a huge success.
 Dennis France of Novartis chaired LRIG during
this time and into the next period of
expansion.
 We resolved that a basic tenet of the group
was to maintain free membership (and serve
great food at the meetings!)

7. Early Days

8. Learning and Fun!

9. Pioneering the Industry

10. Branching out
 In 1996 we thought that this Internet thing
was a good way to let people know about
LRIG. Our first web pages hit the Net in April
1996.
 Immediately our membership expanded and
we began to see attendees at the New Jersey
meetings from all over the US and even
Europe.
 We decided to franchise the LRIG model and
help other geographical regions start their
own chapter.

11. The Chapters
 Steve Fillers from the NJ chapter took a position with
Biogen in Boston and successfully started up the LRIG
New England chapter.
 LRIG Philadelphia Chapter started in 2005,
championed by Tony Nardei.
 Many chapters followed suit and continue to do so.
Our model is for existing chapters to provide enabling
tools, startup funds and guidance to emerging groups.

12. Rebranding

13. Structure
 Each chapter is incorporated
independently as a nonprofit and is
autonomous – control, direction and
governance of each chapter is set
locally
 All LRIG Officers are unpaid
volunteers
 Executive Committee consisting of
representatives from each chapter
provide global direction

14. How does LRIG measure success?
 Membership numbers
 Meeting attendance
 Presentations generated
 Discussion groups activity
 Networking activity
 Alliances with like-minded groups
 Member feedback

15. Membership Numbers (2013)
Total Members 15,956 +
Mid Atlantic 4,828
New England 4,019
Southeast 1,947
Bay Area 1,421
San Diego 1,080
Northwest 1,066
Midwest + Texas 1,777
Washington Metro 965
Upstate NY 1,145
Rockies 305
Philadelphia 1,836
United Kingdom 2,700 + ELRIG
Germany 484 + ELRIG.de
“No Chapter” 1,128

16. LRIG.org

17. LinkedIn (and Facebook too!)
10,442
2,371
816
24
79
59
1,823

18. Discussions on LinkedIn

19. Careers on LinkedIn

20. Promotions on LinkedIn

21. Twitter

22. LRIG Weekly News Digest

23. SLAS LabAutopedia

24. Late Night with LRIG at SLAS

25. Alliances

26. The Most Important Metric
 Our members’ feedback means more than
any number:
Please convey my thanks to you and all the LRIG officers
for a wonderful meeting on Wednesday. I saw several of
my Merck colleagues there (more of my colleagues are
interested in robotics, beyond my HTS colleagues; I believe
some joined LRIG for the first time at this meeting). One
friend from another company, when he found that his
management would not allow him the time to attend the
pre-LRIG seminar and the meeting, actually took a vacation
day in order to attend, telling me, "I learn so much at these
meetings." Great job, once again.

27. How do we do it?
 Volunteer officers!
 LRIG is run with all volunteer boards
and committee members –many hands
lighten the load!
 Committed & enthusiastic members
 Supportive automation tools
providers
 They “pay the freight” by exhibiting and
sponsoring meetings

28. Relevance & Responsiveness
 Robotics?
 Acoustic
Dispensing
 Microfluidics
 Nano-PCR
 Cell Sorting
 Assay-on-a-Chip
 Next Gen
Sequencing
 Drive chapter
topics locally
 With global
perspective
 Respond to local
scientific
environment and
needs of local
researchers

29. “Connecting laboratory automation users since 1981”