Medical genetics department in Nijmegen chooses informatics solution to help control and organise the large amounts of sequencing data it was producing
The Department of Human Genetics at the University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands, turned to Applied Biosystems when the central sequencing facility needed to implement a software solution to help control and organise the large amounts of sequencing data it was producing.
Erik Sistermans, who runs the facility, explained: "When the facility was first set up, a simple homemade Microsoft Access database was created to input sample information, but the laboratory's sequencing workload expanded enormously and it became apparent that a more professional system would be required to cope.
It made sense to us to turn to Applied Biosystems because of its experience and understanding of the world of genomics.
Often there is a technical language barrier between computer scientists and biomedical scientists - they are talking bytes and we are talking nucleotides - but this has never been a real issue with the Applied Biosystems team." Applied Biosystems' Rapid Integration Solution (RIS) team visited the facility and recommended an informatics solution with an open architecture that could manage all of the laboratory data and would allow the patient database and other databases from other central facilities to be fully integrated.
The Life Science Lims application was chosen because it is designed to specifically support the requirements of genomics laboratories, and includes important features such as plate handling and tracking and of course the integration of the Applied Biosystems sequencers.
The RIS team then was able to customise this and additional software modules to take into account issues such as security.
The system is now up and running in Nijmegen and is proving popular with the facility's researchers.
Dr Sistermans concluded: "I am very pleased that, although the system itself is rather complicated, it is very easy for our researchers to use."
