One barrier may be the time needed to populate the online database and keep the projects updated. “I don’t know what is the right way to educate students to make it into a routine for them,” she says. “From a PI’s perspective it’s great, in that I can see what people are doing and I can comment on their science and help give ideas even if I’m not physically there.”īut not everyone is keen to adopt the strategy, which can make it hard for PIs like Salzberg, who have gotten used to using the program on a daily basis. When used by all members of a lab, Labguru becomes a powerful tool, says Mair. “They have everything already organized, in the format of figures and summaries of the experiments they’ve done, and I’ve already seen it and commented on it,” she says. She sees Labguru as a great aid for students, not only because they get more feedback and can plan their experiments with some independence, but also because when it comes to writing up their results, all they need is right there. Mair adds, “As labs grow and as people leave, it’s the stuff that doesn’t get published-the experiments that got tried and got a negative result-that nobody knows about.” With Labguru every experiment is saved and searchable, reducing the probability of repeating failed experiments.Īdi Salzberg, who runs a fly lab for genetic studies at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has advocated for widespread adoption of the program across her institution. “The idea that a lab member could click on a plasmid someone else has made and bring up all the different transgenic lines that we’ve injected that plasmid into, and then find all the different experiments that have been done with those lines, is great it becomes very powerful.”
The online integrated database is the biggest benefit for Mair. The major organizational component is the projects feature, where individual experiments carried out by different lab members are tracked, using milestones such as completion of the experiment or preparation of a figure needed for publication. Lab members input or import details of their protocols, experiments, specimens, and materials to a central database.
Labguru is specifically designed for managing lab research, from experiments to equipment.
All content can be shared with lab members using the paid version.įor Mair, the app that brought all his aspirations together was Labguru. Planning experiments, collating research protocols, maintaining sample databases, ordering supplies, and tracking projects. Organizing Lab Functionsįree for individuals, $12/month per user in an academic lab, $40/month per user in industry (lower charge with long-term contracts) Platforms To learn just what makes an app worth downloading, The Scientist talked to researchers about the apps they are using to improve their personal efficiency and help their labs run more smoothly.
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