Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced that its Nautilus laboratory information management system (Lims) now delivers purpose-built functionality to meet the specific needs of the biobanking industry.
Nautilus Lims for biobanking and biospecimen management will help manage biospecimen locations, online requests, chain-of-custody, and patient demographics.
Built on the plate handling, hierarchical sample management and patented workflows of Nautilus Lims, the biobanking functionality will contribute to the increasing role of biobanks and biorepositories in meeting research-and-development requirements for relevant biospecimens.
Biospecimens serve as the basis for the novel research and development needed for the discovery of breakthrough drugs and medical treatments.
The increased focus on translational medicine and epidemiology has led to a surge in the number of samples generated for research and analysis and to the development of extensive biobanks and repositories that provide the samples and libraries necessary for the high-throughput laboratories engaged in drug discovery research and development.
The function of biobanks is quite diverse and can range from the storage of frozen cell aliquots intended for primary pharmaceutical screening and tissue biopsies for disease research to patient DNA samples used by government agencies and large, multi-sample population libraries for translational studies.
Nautilus Lims for Biobanks can help accelerate sample analysis by providing optimised logistical and operational support to researchers by ensuring that samples are available when and where they are needed.
Nautilus Lims also delivers well-organised, accurate and timely data, providing both scientific and business users with meaningful information essential for discovery and the daily decision-making process of the business of the biobank.
Thermo Scientific Nautilus Lims is designed to address the challenges of specimen collection and banking for pharmaceutical discovery and clinical operations, academic and biosciences research centres, medical institutions and contract research organisations.
Nautilus Lims for Biobanks is a preconfigured version of Nautilus that facilitates data capture, specification management, chain-of-custody and handling assurance needs that improve operational efficiencies.
Whether storing or tracking whole blood, tissue, cellular lysates, DNA, RNA, proteins, and so on, Nautilus supports organisation-wide inventory control.
Nautilus's web interface provides centralised global access in a secure environment.
In addition, Nautilus's built-in graphical workflow utility tool allows an organisation to easily extend its capabilities and tailor the solution to its laboratory's data capture, result management, storage and specimen handling requirements.
In addition to Nautilus Lims, Thermo Fisher has an array of products that are tailored to the needs of biobanks and biorepositories and delivered in an end-to-end solution.
The Thermo Scientific Biobank is an automated sample-management module designed to safely store biological samples at -80C.
It is ideal for a range of research applications such as cell-based assays, bacterial clones, protein, DNA and RNA libraries.
Also available are the Thermo Scientific 2D barcoded Matrix, Nunc and Abgene tubes, which address the needs of biobanks that require permanently attached 2D barcodes for secure sample tracking and chain-of-custody.
