Senin, 11 Juni 2018

LIMS: What It Means And How They Are Used

By Andrew Thompson


Virtually every lab that has ever existed has incorporated the use of what's called a laboratory information management system. The common abbreviation for this kind of thing is LIMS, which is helpful to know for anyone going into a laboratory setting for the first time and encountering this acronym. There are also other common names for the same type of system, such as LIS for laboratory information system, as well as LMS for laboratory management system.

It would be impossible to find a single modern lab in the world today that doesn't use a system like this. There is just no way around them when one considers the massive amounts of data and other information that these scientific research facilities have to go through on a daily basis. They are absolutely essential to make the tasks and duties of the scientists no only easier, but in a way that opens up the doors to greater possibilities.

When there are numerous different people working in a lab, it is easy to lose track of who worked when, who did what, and any other detail that can come into play in a specific type of scientific experiment. Losing just a tiny bit of data or having something mixed up can often make or break an experiment, and these little accidents can be extremely costly. That's why just keeping track of workflow in a reliable and automated way is something that research facilities need to have.

What often happened before these types of advanced tools were possible is that some information was inevitably lost in the sea of chicken-scratch handwriting and mountains of files. No matter how diligent an organizer you are, there comes a point where manual data input has too much room for inaccuracy. Having something like this that puts all of the information automatically into the same place that is safe and secure has made accuracy in laboratories much higher.

Specialty labs are ones that focus on a specific type of science or experiments. In these cases, a tool that is customized to their purposes is often needed. This makes it so the somewhat different needs of these labs can be met more easily.

There have been many different types of information systems over the years. The one thing that is most noticeable about how they've changed is how advanced they have become. Scientific and technological advancement is the reason why these tools have developed so much.

The very first laboratory systems for tracking information were basically just sample trackers. This may seem like a very basic purpose when compared to how they're used today, but this was an essential tool for scientists everywhere. It's amazing to think of how much these tools can do for us now.

Just like there are many different types of scientists, laboratories, and branches of science, there are many different opinions on what the real definition of a laboratory's information system is. It is important to become familiarized with what the accepted definition in any given area or research is. This can help to avoid confusion as to what colleagues are talking about.




About the Author:



Tidak ada komentar:

Posting Komentar