Abstract
Saturday January 17, 1998 Short Courses
HTML: Weaving the Web
Instructors
Mrs. Lisa Gardner
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM
Mrs. Vicki Brown
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM
With the enormous explosion of information now available on the Web, there is no time like now to learn how to weave your own web space. This course provides comprehensive hands-on experiece with HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the language of the Web. Participants must have at least an understanding of the Web.
The first half of this one-day course covers HTML basics (a brief overview of what HTML is), plus students will learn to create a page including lists, linking, anchoring, and graphics. The second half of the day will entail utilizing Microsoft FrontPage as a Web Editor. This will include creating tables and templates for the Web.
Automating the Lab with Tool Command Language (Tcl)
Instructor:
Mr. Petar Stojadinovic
Chiron Corp.
Emeryville, CA
Tcl/Tk enables effective and efficient development cycle turnaround, easy maintainability of software, and cross platform portability and support as a freeware, shareware, or commercial product. In addition, it offers an interactive development environment for building graphical user interface (GUI) applications, web development, and embedded system programming and control. In this course developers shall gain practical knowledge in using Tcl with hands on experience. The focus of this course is to show that Tcl/Tk is being used in commercial products and to train developers in utilizing it in industry.
Introduction to RF Tags
Instructor:
Mr. Michael J. Cacchillo
Micron Communications, Inc.
Boise, ID
This course is intended to establish a fundamental understanding of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) basics and move the participant into a position to evaluate its benefits in the clinical laboratory setting and beyond. Section one deals in the technology itself. Discussion on active and passive technologies, basic reader technology and the functionality of an RFID system.
Section Two will go deeper into the features and benefits of active and passive technology and discuss the flexibility and limitations gained through the choice of the system and the systems design. The session will include demonstrations of each type of technology and provide “hands on” experience.
Section Three will discuss present and future applications of the different types of systems. We are pleased to have Mr. Barry Prom from IRORI (a company that provides leading edge combinatorial chemistry technology to the pharmaceutical industry) joining our presentation. He will give a current user's perspective on employing RFID in the tracking of micro reactions in the laboratory setting. We will further discuss the clinical and hospital environments and applications such as access control, high value asset management, and inventory control.
Finally, a general discussion on future possibilities of RFID, and the “Business Side” of the equation will be addressed.
An Introduction to Laboratory Automation and Robotics
Instructors:
Dr. Steven D. Hamilton
Amgen, Inc.
Boulder, CO
Dr. Gary W. Kramer
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD
Dr. Mark F. Russo
Bristol Myers Squibb
Princeton, NJ
Today's increasingly competitive business environment continues to emphasize on the use of automation technology to improve laboratory productivity, to accelerate discovery, and to maintain quality. With the proper planning and implementation, robotics can be a highly flexible tool for laboratory automation.
This is an introductory course, aimed at those considering automating their laboratory operations and those managing increasingly automated laboratories. The topics covered will be:
Reasons for employing laboratory automation.
An overview of current laboratory automation and robotics technology and usage, from workstations to fully integrated systems.
Planning, implementing and maintaining successful automation applications.
Automation specific issues involving documentation, validation, open systems and standards.
A review of specific automation-related technologies, such as automatic ID, sensors, vision systems, and software for system control and scheduling.
Understanding the relationship of automation and informatics, and the various options, tools and strategies that may be employed to manage automation-generated data.
A preview of emerging technologies that may have an impact on laboratory automation.
Combinatorial Chemistry
Instructors:
Dr. Sheila DeWitt
Parke Davis
Ann Arbor, MI
Dr. David Nickell
Diversomer Technologies, Inc.
Ann Arbor, MI
Ms. Ela Hogan
Parke-Davis
Ann Arbor, MI
An informal workshop designed to provide an opportunity to evaluate and implement alternative methods in Combinatorial Chemistry and Automated Synthesis. The course will provide a comprehensive overview of enabling technologies and commercial products for Combinatorial Chemistry including solid phase synsthesis, split/mix methods, reaction equipment, information management systems, and automation. A unique combination of short presentations coupled with hands-on experiments (adapted for a conference room setting) will provide the opportunity to thoroughly understand the execution and application of techniques for Combinatorial Chemistry and Automated Synthesis.
Sunday January 18, 1998 Short Courses
Intermediate Clinical Laboratory Robotics
Instructor:
Dr. Robin A. Felder
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA
Robotics and automation technology can improve the efficiency of health care delivery. However, laboratory directors must set reasonable automation goals for their laboratories. Based on a high return on investment, there are two basic choices for automating the laboratory, central receiving and point-of-care. This workshop will focus on discussion of the issues involved with considering, planning, implementing, and justifying laboratory automation.
CORE LABORATORY AUTOMATION
Central receiving is presumably the most likely area of the laboratory to automate since labor costs are highest for sample processing. Recent technology has become available for specimen labeling, sorting, centrifuging, aliquotting, and transportation. In order for automation to be cost effective we must understand the benefits and limitations of pre-analytical processors. Recent progress will assist with their success such as new developing defacto standards for sample conveyance, laboratory information/automation system (LIS/LAS) software, interfaces which provide the necessary control data, and high reliability which should allow unattended operation. Limitations of sample tube variety and the ability of automation to handle exception specimens may compromise the cost savings of pre-analytical automation.
Three approaches to laboratory automation include 1. the use of modular devices (e.g. Autolab Autoquot, BDC universal tube labeler, and Lablnterlink conveyor system), 2.the use of a modular conveyor system (e.g. the LAS from Coulter/IDS), 3. the use of a full turnkey system (e.g. the CLAS from Boehringer Mannheim/Hitachi). The benefits of each of these systems will be discussed.
POINT-OF-CARE AUTOMATION
Point-of-care testing has traditionally been reserved for analytes which are necessary for rapid assessment of critically ill patients. Only limited menus of tests have been offered at point-of-care due to high costs and the lack of tests available on whole blood specimens. The ideal point-of-care system would utilize commercially available instruments, offer blood gases, electrolytes, chemistry, coagulation and hematology tests, provide rapid turnaround on whole blood specimens, be operated by nurses and ward clerks yet maintain control in the hands of laboratory professionals. We have developed the Remote Automated Laboratory System which provides these features at a cost less than that of performing the same test in the central laboratory. Our clinical outcomes studies have demonstrated that automation of point-of-care analysis reduces the time patients spend on mechanical ventilation.
SUMMARY
The need for central Laboratory Automation Systems will increase in the near future as laboratories consolidate into regional laboratories. Point-of-care automation will remain an expanding necessity during this consolidation process. Eventually, 80% of laboratory testing will be performed at point-of-care with the remainder split between small on-site automated laboratories and a few large commercial laboratories. Therefore, laboratories should develop both central laboratory as well as point-of-care automation in order to be comptetive in the upcoming medical marketplace.
Electronic Lab Notebooks, Scientific Groupware, Document Management and Collaborative Computing Systems
Instructor:
Dr. Rich Lysakowski
TeamScience, Inc.
Woburn, MA
Dr. James T. Currie, Jr.
TeamScience, Inc.
Woburn, MA
Organizations are struggling to find competitive advantages to increase sales, stay profitable, and make the most effective use of their employees and other limited resources. Technology and re-engineering can provide some solutions. Scientists are taking the next steps in lab automation and scientific computing: collaborative electronic notebook systems (CENS), groupware, workflow, document management and other types of collaborative computing systems. Some of these systems are being built using Web-based technologies, which make them easier to use and more collaborative, and make them work for larger deployments.
However, requirements are not always clear and people are often bewildered by the broad array of commercial offerings.
Understanding and evaluating them is very expensive in human effort.
This course is a practical introduction to the legal, regulatory, technical, and social aspects of how to evaluate these technologies and make fit together into systems that work for your company. It reviews vocabularies and a full range of concepts needed to understand them. We cover electronic recordkeeping system requirements for meeting federal agency and patent office rules, including recently released regulations for software systems.
Technology still present significant barriers when implementing electronic notebook systems, though you can use a few commercial products now to build, pilot, and deploy systems. Vendors may tell you their products meet regulatory and legal recordkeeping requirements, however you, not vendors, will be subject to regulatory penalties and loss of patents if your system fails to meet requirements. When selecting systems, you must know how to evaluate systems that meet the needs of all user roles.
When implementing these complex systems, you must also pay close attention to your company's cultural and social factors, and operational aspects. Poor project planning for these systems will almost lead to almost certain failure. On the other hand, careful project planning and management will help you drive a successful implementation, promote strong user acceptance and usage, and give you the huge return on investment achieved by others. We will discuss capabilities and optimum applications areas of some leading products, and give you case studies for how people are applying systems in R&D and manufacturing labs today.
Time permitting, we will also show some technology demonstrations. Overall, you will receive much helpful knowledge to demystify these new automation technologies and strategies to apply them.
Introduction to Java
Instructor:
Mr. Torsten Staab
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM
Mr. Ralf Espenschied
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, NM
In May 1995, Sun Microsystems officially introduced their new programming language, Java. It was originally designed for writing programs for small computers embedded in consumer electronics appliances, such as microwave ovens and television sets. Java is an object oriented, portable, dynamic general purpose programming language. It was derived from several other programming languages, such as C++. Over the last two years Java has gained a lot of popularity because of the following reasons:
Java software can be:
Hardware platform-independent
Dynamically loadable via a network
Single- or multi-threaded
Robust and safe through automated memory management and build-in security measures
Participants are expected to have basic programming skills in a structured programming language, such as C, C++, Pascal, Basic, or similar. In hands-on sessions, students will learn how to create, compile, and execute Java applets and applications. Upon completion of the course, participants will have the necessary background needed to use Java productively.
LIMS in the Organization
Instructor:
Dr. Robert D. McDowall
McDowall Consulting
Bromley, Kent, UK
Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) are databases customized to organize and automate the sample and information flow within analytical laboratories and their customer base. The course is intended to give an overview of key stages in a project and to utilize the input of the attendees experiences within the group. Although intended for analytical laboratories; the principles outlined can be applied to Laboratory Information Systems (LIS) for clinical laboratories, toxicology information systems, and other information systems.
This short course will be a mixture of lectures, case studies and open discussions. Participants are expected to contribute their experiences and problems to the course for discussion.
The course will cover the following topics:
•Introductions: participant learning objectives •Developing the overall strategy for a project via the LIMS matrix: High level prioritization of the functions and phasing of the project. Covers what is a LIMS, the full scope of a system within an organization and approaches to implementing the system, replacing an existing system •Overview of the life cycle of a laboratory information management system •User requirements specification: Why is it important? What is it? Role of prototyping • Role of the Users in a LIMS project •Validation of a LIMS: life cycle approach and the documented evidence required •Risk assessment of a project throughout the project life cycle •Open forum: where any questions can be raised by the participants
The course is not aimed at a technical level: programming and detailed technical architectures will not be covered.
Introduction to Automated Data Collection Technology
Instructor
Mr. Matt Allen
Microscan Systems, Inc.
Renton, WA
This course will address the information needed for the design of an automated identification system. Examples from automated clinical environments will be used throughout this course. The first section of the course discusses the information requirements for an automated system. Specific examples will include patient, tray, and reagent identifiers. After the pertinent information is selected, choosing the best symbology (out of over 3000) to encode that information will be discussed. Linear, stacked, and 2D codes will be all covered along with their advantages and disadvantages.
The second section of the course details the hardware that is available to print, read and decode the different types of symbologies. Printers, Wand, CCD, Laser, and Vision systems will all be discussed. The capabilities and limitations of each technology will be detailed.
The final section will discuss integration of the scanner into the automated system. Scanner placement in the system depends on the type of scanner used; depth of field; and symbology size. Size, weight, and position are all considerable factors with respect to the label. In addition, communication protocols, and customization for specific applications will be discussed. Some types of scanners provide information beyond reading the symbology. Object sensing and corrupt label detection and the ability to decode a damages label, are among the additional pieces of information that can make an automated system more robust.
Mass Spectrometry and Drug Discovery
Instructor:
Dr. Gary Siuzdak
The Scripps Research Institute
La Jolla, CA
Dr. Daniel B. Kassel
CombiChem, Inc.
San Diego, CA
Mass spectrometry is playing an increasingly important role in the molecular characterization of combinatorial libraries, natural products, and biopolymers. The development of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) and electrospray ionization (ESI) has significantly extended its application to a wide variety of challenging problems in drug discovery and to the identification of effective ligand-receptor binding, new catalysts, and enzyme inhibitors. Crucial to distinguishing the most active component of a library or obtaining structure-activity relationships of compounds in a library is an efficient qualitative and quantitative assay. ESI and MALDI mass spectrometry have succeeded as such by qualitatively screening combinatorial libraries and recently have been used as a quantitative assay as well. In addition, the ease with which these methods can be automated has further brought mass spectrometry even closer to the forefront as an analytical tool for the modern laboratory. In our presentation we plan to cover a wide range of topics in the automation and application of mass spectrometry to drug discovery.
These include:
An introduction to current methods in MS.
“open access” mass spectrometry for the characterization of reaction intermediates.
Automated LC/MS for the characterization and purification of combinatorial libraries.
Automated approaches in MALDI-MS analysis and MALDI post-source decay MS for characterizing compound libraries.
MS-based strategies for characterizing receptor:ligand and enzyme:substrate interactions.
High throughput LC/MS and LC/MS/MS for assessing pharmacokinetic properties.
Strategies for the automated analysis of resin bound biomolecules.
High throughput ESI and MALDI-MS quantitation of biomolecules.
Automated MS-based strategies for protein identification from 2D-gels including examples of database searching.
Future directions in the automation of MS.
Saturday and Sunday
January 17&18, 1998
Two-Day Short Courses
Automating the Laboratory with Visual Basic®
Instructors:
Dr. Martin M. Echols
SmithKline Beecham
King Of Prussia, PA
Dr. Mark F. Russo
Bristol Myers Squibb
Princeton, NJ
The Visual Basic ® programming environment for Microsoft Windows ® has become one of the most prominent custom application development tools for the automated laboratory. Visual Basic (VB) combines a simple programming language, intuitive graphical user interface development tools, and a wide range of built-in and third-party software libraries. These features make VB attractive for developing custom software components for automated laboratory systems.
This short course will introduce the Visual Basic programming system and cover the features that make VB an invaluable tool for automating a laboratory. Several relevant sample programs will be examined. Hands-on sessions will provide the opportunity to work with VB and sample programs.
Topics to be covered include:
The VB approach to graphical user interface development Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) and ActiveX Automation.
Instrument communication and control using the RS-232 and other protocols.
Visual Basic for Applications and the MS Excel Object Model.
Database application development.
Creating scientific graphical displays.
This class will provide a sufficient background to begin successful development of a wide range of custom laboratory applications using Visual Basic.
Neural Networks - A Hands-On Computer Workshop
Instructor:
Dr. Charles T. Butler
Computational Intelligence
Reston, VA
This course is a two-day hands-on workshop on neural networks and their clinical and other applications. Three other computational intelligence methods-knowledge-based and fuzzy systems and genetic algorithms- will be introduced and their areas of usefulness and overlap with neural systems discussed. Attendees will perform hands-on experiments using both specially written software from the textbook and powerful commercial simulation software. Illustrative examples will emphasize clinical and medical applications. Students will use real-world biomedical data for the hands-on computer experiments.
Neural networks are information processing systems modeled after the structure of the brain and are among the most innovative problem solving methods in use today. Unlike traditional computers, neural networks are trained to solve problems, learning appropriate solutions from examples rather than forcing the developer to provide detailed algorithmic instructions. They are often successful in problem domains that have not yielded to algorithmic or expert-system approaches. Neural networks can be applied to real, binary, and discrete data, and to both spatial and temporal problems, including classifying patterns, controlling complex laboratory processes and equipment, providing expert-level advice, clustering unknown data, and mapping functions from one domain to another. They are especially appropriate for applications in which human expertise is the current usual solution, typically performing as well or better than their human counterparts at lower cost. The hands-on nature of this workshop allows participants to gain practical experience with these innovative systems.
On the first day, the instructor will introduce neural networks, then cover supervised and unsupervised learning. He will use the popular backpropagation network as an example of a network using supervised learning and the Kohonen self-organizing network as an example of a network using unsupervised learning. Attendees will train their own networks of each of these types and learn the effects of several of the important parameters governing their operation. The instructor will then introduce three complementary methods—expert systems, fuzzy systems, and genetic algorithms—and compare their areas of usefulness to those of neural systems.
On the second day, attendees will apply powerful professional simulator software to data from actual biomedical applications to gain experience in using neural networks to solve difficult “real-world” problems and to illustrate the need for and methods of proper data preparation and analysis. The day will close with an open question-and-answer session on topics related to attendee applications
Machine Vision For Laboratory Automation - Fundamentals and Applications
Instructors:
Dr. John E. Agapakis
Acuity Imaging, Inc.
Nashua, NH
Dr. Sarath Krishnaswamy
Acuity Imaging, Inc.
Nashua, NH
Over the last fifteen years, machine vision - the extraction of useful symbolic descriptions from video images - has matured as a technology and is now considered an indispensable tool for manufacturing automation.
Manufacturing applications of machine vision include part presence/absence detection, part location/orientation determination, part recognition, quality inspection, precise two-dimensional (2D) or three-dimensional (3D) gauging, robot or other machine guidance, and process control.
As the use of robotic automation in the laboratory becomes more widespread, the need for and application of machine vision technology has also expanded. Machine vision is now finding increasing utility in pharmaceutical research laboratories, in DNA mapping/sequencing automation applications, and in the clinical laboratory. Applications of machine vision include labware inspection, dissolution testing, procedure validation, colony picking, machine guidance, and quality control.
In this short course we will cover the basics of machine vision and image analysis and examine examples of these emerging applications of machine vision in the automated laboratory. The course will start with examples of laboratory applications of machine vision and will include interactive sessions for setting up sample applications. We will then detail the parts of the machine vision system and briefly cover some of the theory behind image processing and analysis.
The latter segment of the course will be free time in which course participants will have access to state-of-the-art machine vision workstations on which they may explore and experiment with different image analysis algorithms and vision-guided motion applications.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own ideas and lab consumables or other apparatus for mocking up applications on these development stations.