About
labs.gladstone.ucsf.edu/stem_cell
People
Dr. Kathy Ivey Staff Research Investigator and Director
Victoria Yoon Research Associate and Lab Manager
Overall Goal
Achieving holistic and proactive
inventory and research management
Approach
Investing in a fully integrated lab management solution from Labguru
Results
- Easy access and real-time extraction of key experimental information from any location
- Increased documentation accuracy and flexibilty
- Faster onboarding of new team members due to accurately documented procedures and protocols and an accurate storage location system
- Enhanced inventory management
Dr. Kathy Ivey
Staff Research Investigator and Director
Victoria Yoon
Research Associate and Lab Manager
Gladstone Institutes is an independent, nonprofit life science research organization dedicated to overcoming unsolved diseases through transformative biomedical research.
We interviewed Dr. Kathy Ivey, Staff Research Investigator and Director at the Gladstone Stem Cell Core, and Victoria Yoon, Research Associate and Lab Manager at the Gladstone Neuroscience Research Group.
Choosing Labguru
Kathy’s first encounter with Labguru occurred when her previous lab inventory management tool, Lablife, was replaced by it at the Srivastava Lab. All cell lines, mouse lines, and a plasmid database were migrated from Lablife to Labguru. The group also seized the opportunity to replace their lab notebooks with the Labguru Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN). Kathy explains: “I was struck by the irony that our research group was super advanced, but we still persisted with recording everything on paper. This wasn’t searchable, it was only accessible in the lab, and as a PI, I certainly couldn’t take my research group’s lab notebooks home when working on a grant application.”
Tracking progress
Adopting an ELN was particularly appealing to Kathy’s group, as most of the data they collect is digital – sequencing data, images from microscopes, and gel and fluorescent images. Labguru was the perfect location to deposit and view this experimental data. Kathy enjoys Labguru's weekly email digest and uses it to track the progress of experiments being conducted by her team. “It’s like a Venn diagram, and Labguru access is organized by experiment and by person. Staff only see the projects that are relevant to them but the Principal Investigator can see everything,” she explains.
Accuracy
Kathy reports that Labguru is particularly useful because it allows experimental procedures to be recorded accurately and consistently. This is vital for research associates who must, over a period of several weeks, execute repetitive experimental procedures while making minor modifications to see how they affect the results. All modifications must be recorded accurately, which is why researchers use Labguru's flexible experiment templates.
The ability to create clear and accurate documentation in the Labguru ELN is also critical due to the high turnover of research staff. Processes need to be clearly documented so that when new research associates and postdocs join the team, they have clear protocols to follow. Kathy notes that this is especially important as her team grows and the PI has less time to spend mentoring new research associates.
Labguru helps us monitor the quantity and frequency of materials being ordered to avoid duplication.
Inventory integration
Victoria is thrilled that Labguru solves the problem of fusing inventory management and the ELN in one easily accessible location: “Quartzy was the previous solution we used for inventory management, but its functionality was limited and you had to have another tool to get access to the ELN.” With Labguru, Victoria finds that she can be easily updated on the progress of each project. The hierarchy of experiments and the inventory lists in Labguru are also well structured, she says. “The benefit here is that as a lab manager you do not go off on a tangent. You can be focused and organized with your notes and know exactly where you need to go next.” Inventory management, plasticware, chemicals, and compounds are all listed in Labguru. This helps Victoria track current stock levels, and the frequency by which each item is ordered and used by each team member. "“Labguru helps us monitor the quantity and frequency of materials being ordered to avoid duplication," she gushes.