July 14, 2020 - Automate Your Genetics Lab Testing with the Most Trusted and Widely Used Name in Genetics Laboratory Information Systems

SCC Soft Computer’s SoftGenomics® supports ordering, testing, documentation, and reporting in laboratories that perform testing using cytogenetic and molecular technologies, including chromosome analysis and microarrays, with instrument and foreign system interfacing capabilities and Web-based online ordering, reporting, and collaboration functionality. Regardless of your facility’s size or type of testing you perform, with built-in instrument connectivity and workflow automation, SCC’s Genetics Information Systems Solutions are designed to optimize your laboratory performance.

[Read More]

July 7, 2020 - SCC Soft Computer Introduces 90-Day Rapid Implementation Featuring New Product SoftLIMS™

As laboratories prepare for an influx of testing due to COVID-19, SCC has established a rapid implementation of 90-days or less to onboard and accelerate COVID-19 tests. SCC’s Rapid Implementation process gets laboratories up and running within 90-days in order to support the rapid growth of current testing within the healthcare marketplace. Starting with identifying the client’s goals, such as to minimize manual data entry/electronic documentation or to increase productivity via automation, the idea for many is to streamline the current processes to accelerate resulting as testing increases exponentially as months go on.

[Read More]

July 7, 2020 - What Is IQ OQ PQ in Software Validation

If you work in a business regulated by a government agency, once you’ve implemented or upgraded your LIMS, ELN, or CDS, you need to validate it for your intended use. One part of the validation process that often seems confusing to our clients is the IQ, OQ, PQ testing. This blog will demystify these validation protocol test scripts.

[Read More]

July 7, 2020 - Case Study: Cybersecurity Assessment for a Global Biopharmaceutical Company

One of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies, initiated an Enterprise Cyber Resiliency initiative to protect and isolate its manufacturing sites from cyber-attack and have the ability to sustain operations in light of a corporate-level attack. Due to Astrix Technology Group’s (Astrix) expertise with enterprise-wide laboratory information systems, experience working with other biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and track record of eliminating risk and delivering on similar projects for other life science organizations, the customer chose Astrix to conduct an assessment of its laboratory systems across five global manufacturing sites.

[Read More]

June 29, 2020 - Customer Specification Matching and Product Regrading with QLIMS

Product variation is a natural effect of manufacturing, the question here is how do you manage product variation in a manner that can improve your business and meet customer specifications.
The Answer: Automating the customer specification and product regrading process.This is especially important for organisations that cater to a wide range of customers or export markets that may have different specifications due to preferences or government/industry regulations.

[Read More]

June 29, 2020 - 3 Considerations for Building a Diagnostic Testing Lab

how to build a diagnostic testing labDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has developed a renewed interest in, and placed an emphasis on, diagnostics. As a result, new companies and laboratories are being established across the U.S. to support the need for diagnostic testing. In some cases, companies are building brand new facilities from the ground up, while others are setting up diagnostic workflows in biotechnology incubators or other pre-existing laboratory infrastructures. 

[Read More]

June 29, 2020 - Remote Capabilities in the World of COVID-19: Laboratory Informatics Roadmap for Encoded Therapeutics

Encoded Therapeutics Inc. (Encoded), a biotechnology company advancing precision medicines for a broad range of genetic disorders. With the increasing need to establish a harmonized laboratory data and process workflow to support the rapid growth of the company, Encoded Therapeutics chose Astrix Technology Group to develop their Informatics Roadmap and Sample Management strategy. However, the COVID-19 pandemic would require a novel new approach to doing business in an unprecedented remote work environment.

[Read More]

June 23, 2020 - Astrix On-Demand Webinar – Planning and Executing a LabVantage LIMS Validation

Validating a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) with the many configuration and integration options that are available for LabVantage requires significant project planning and team coordination to execute successfully.

[Read More]

June 16, 2020 - How to Ensure Value from your Lab Informatics Implementation

Picture this—it’s the day that the lab informatics system you’ve needed for years finally goes live. You hear the cheers, you see the smiles on everyone’s faces, there’s excitement from the end users to learn the new system, and your boss can see the value of the system you implemented. It’s a happy day. If...

[Read More]

June 16, 2020 - SCC adds new product to our Research Information System Suite product catalogue

BIO BANK IMG-draft 02After 40 years our primary focus remains to provide laboratories with world-wide powerful and flexible software tools enabling them to compete in a highly competitive clinical diagnostics marketplace.  Applying technology to create the most advanced—and most cost-effective—healthcare IT solutions continues to be our strategy as we introduce SoftBiobank™ to our Research Information Systems Suite.

[Read More]

June 16, 2020 - How Labs and Businesses Can Work Together to Reopen Safely

How Labs and Businesses Can Work Together to Reopen Safely

As the nations of the world begin transitioning from flattening the curve to cautiously beginning to resume doing business, the focus is turning to how best to prevent a “second wave” - and in fact to operate over the long term in the face of potential similar pandemics. Experts tell us this may only be the beginning, and that the likelihood is that new zoonotic viruses will arise with increasing frequency as we continue to disrupt natural habitats to accommodate the ever-increasing human population.

[Read More]

June 15, 2020 - PCR and Diagnostics: COVID-19 Pandemic Reveals Serious Issues

PCR and Diagnostics: COVID-19 Pandemic Reveals Serious Issues

There has been recent discussion of the lack of accuracy of COVID-19 tests - both virus (rRT-PCR), which has been widely regarded as “the gold standard”, and antibody assays. The issue with PCR is not with the methods themselves, but the degree of human error that creeps in due to the complexity of the workflow - including pre-analytical sample handling, which can account for up to 68% of errors according to a recent paper, with overall inaccuracies of up to 41%.

[Read More]

June 9, 2020 - Selecting a Managed Services Partner for Laboratory Informatics

Scientific organizations face ever increasing pressure from business stakeholders to reduce costs while improving operational efficiency, scalability, and agility. Laboratory research is more complicated and dependent on informatics than ever. IT organizations are seeking a solution through the development and deployment of an integrated laboratory informatics strategy and infrastructure.

[Read More]

June 9, 2020 - National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Updates – June 2020

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is our nation’s medical research agency and strives to make scientific discoveries that improve health and save lives. Founded in 1870, the NIH conducts its own scientific research through its Intramural Research Program (IRP), which supports approximately 1,200 principal investigators and more than 4,000 postdoctoral fellows conducting basic, translational and clinical research. In this blog, we will highlight recent ground-breaking NIH research.

[Read More]

June 2, 2020 - 10 Steps to Laboratory Automation using QLIMS

Modern analytical and research laboratories have experienced a tremendous growth in data volumes in recent years. In order to translate all this data into knowledge, labs are increasingly looking to automate and integrate their processes to not only provide digital continuity throughout the sample life cycle but also improve data integrity.

[Read More]

June 2, 2020 - 5 Important Elements of Lab Informatics Implementation Success

Now that you’ve made the big decision and invested in a new or upgraded laboratory informatics system (whether it be LIMS, LES, CDS, or ELN), how do you ensure that your implementation will be a success? At CSols, ensuring implementation success is one of the things we specialize in, and we’ve acquired the expertise to determine what can make or break a project. If your implementation includes the following five elements, you’ll be well on your way to success.

[Read More]

June 2, 2020 - Benchling Raises $50M to Accelerate Life Science R&D Globally

Benchling is announcing a $50M Series D investment, led by Alkeon Capital with participation from new investors Spark Capital, Lux Capital, and ICONIQ Partners, as well as existing investors Thrive Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Benchmark. We are thrilled to have these long-term partners on our journey.  The ongoing pandemic has put biotechnology under the global spotlight. As scientists race to develop treatments and vaccines for COVID-19 on an unprecedented timescale, we’re seeing how far life science has come.

[Read More]

June 2, 2020 - Introducing SoftLIMS™ | SCC’s Cloud-based Configurable Laboratory Information Management System

2020_LIMS_BLOG_BANNER_20200601As part of SCC’s Research Information Systems Suite, SoftLIMS is a cloud-based, multi-tenant laboratory information management system that provides the following features:

[Read More]

May 29, 2020 - COVID-19 Testing: How are we doing to meet the challenge?

COVID-19 Testing LIMS

How are we doing in meeting the challenge? We’re now almost five months in since the notorious SARS-CoV-2 first reared its ugly head in December in Wuhan, with the first diagnosed case in the US following soon after in January. In the US, the pandemic caught laboratories seriously unprepared to meet the demands for testing, despite having a few months to watch its spread elsewhere before numbers became pressing here.

[Read More]

May 28, 2020 - A Day (or Three) In the Life of a COVID-19 Testing Event – Day Four: The Conclusion

COVID-19 Testing LIMS

Originally intended as a 3-part blog (test results would be returned in 2–3 days they said), the documenting of my experience of getting tested for COVID-19 would more accurately be re-titled “A Day (or Ten)…”. The good news is I finally got the phone call with my result this morning. The better news is that it was negative.

[Read More]