Major enhancements in the leading drug discovery data management software facilitate workflows for biologists, compound handlers and system administrators
IDBS, provider of integrated data management, analysis and decision-making software for life sciences, has announced ActivityBase 5.1.
The pharmaceutical industry's standard platform for managing drug discovery data, ActivityBase fully integrates biological and chemical information.
Version 5.1 improves access to relevant inventory and test information, and provides new data visualisation and interactivity functionality. These new graphical features enable aggregate views of large volumes of biological and chemical data, streamlining and facilitating quality control decision-making in the screening process.
"ActivityBase is a key pillar of research infrastructure at nine of the top ten large pharmaceutical companies, as well being the enterprise data management system for many of the leading biotechs," commented Neil Kipling, chairman and CEO of IDBS.
"Scientists within these companies generate a great diversity and volume of research data.
This calls for powerful approaches to accessing and interpreting large and complex data sets.
The enhancements in ActivityBase 5.1 represent a breakthrough in terms of presenting data and empowering users to act upon it." With new drill-down windows, users may view a full complement of details about plates and compounds within a consolidated view.
For example, using the Test Explorer drill-down window, users can access contextual information about a plate such as similar tests that have been carried out upon replicates, and any results previously scored against it.
The Genealogy Browser enables users to browse plate and compound ancestry, and to carry out queries on ancestral information.
In essence, these wide-ranging enhancements further facilitate access to relevant information, assisting scientists to make better decisions, faster.
Using the 3D visualisation capabilities within ActivityBase 5.1, biologists may implement advanced quality control across an entire screening run.
The plotting of plate quality data enables hotspots to be identified quickly (for example, indicating result errors and faulty readings), so appropriate action may be taken.
Display options within ActivityBase 5.1 include 3D histograms, single, stacked and aggregate plate views and full rotation.
Results may be examined plate by plate and well by well, or in aggregate, to visually identify trends in result values.
Once results have been examined, they can be verified en masse if appropriate.
As well as benefiting biologists and compound handlers, system administrators will also see significant enhancements in ActivityBase 5.1.
It alleviates a range of system administration tasks for greater efficiency, and offers improved scalability, supporting hundreds and even thousands of users across the enterprise.
