About
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kulaomics
People
Adi Bar-Shalom Head of Biological Processes
Overall Goal
Boost efficiency and adaptability across the board
Approach
Go all-in on automation to boost efficiency
Results
- Hours of work saved
- Majority of processes automated
- Significant improvement in human errors
Adi Bar-Shalom
Head of Biological Processes
KulaOmics is an innovative multi-omics laboratory specializing in the fields of genomics and transcriptomics.
The company uses high throughput protocols and fully automated robotic workflows for the generation of large-scale biological data. “Omics” data helps advance their understanding in different fields ranging from biomedical research to personalized medicine, agriculture, and environmental science.
KulaOmics aims to become a world-leading hub offering cutting-edge technological services to academic research institutes and the biotech industry.
KulaOmics uses stool or vaginal samples for extraction of bacterial DNA and sequencing of the human microbiome. Currently, they have the world’s largest dataset with over 70,000 human-gut microbiome samples. They are also expanding capabilities to perform RNA sequencing and Phage Immuno-Precipitation sequencing (PhIP-seq).
As KulaOmics continues to expand its pipelines and scientific capabilities, we caught up with Adi Bar-Shalom, Head of Biological Processes, to find out how Labguru supports its growing potential.
.svg)
Challenges
Before Labguru, KulaOmics was using in-house software to manage the processing, analysis, and storage of samples.
This in-house software was inflexible, lacked adaptability to cope with new biological processes or any changes to existing ones, required manual labor, and was prone to human errors. Modifying processes or correcting human errors required KulaOmics to be heavily dependent on the company’s team of developers to fix the issues, leading to frequent delays.
“The lack of support was quite exhausting”
For example, while preparing the gut microbe library, they started the process with a specific commercial kit. Later, when changing to a different kit with a slightly different output, it took weeks to adapt the system to this small change.
KulaOmics’ growing lab needed a flexible, responsive system with excellent customer support – after reviewing several solutions, Labguru was the most suitable choice.
Solution
All-things Automation
The extensive, powerful automation implemented with Labguru’s Workflow Editor has taken KulaOmics' operations to the next level.
Automation has been used to simplify and streamline their QC process. Now, KulaOmics’ gut microbiome pipeline has a module that automatically identifies and highlights problematic samples, flagging them for attention. At this stage, the system’s inbuilt flexibility allows them to perform several actions on the samples like re-checking or re-running a step. With this robust automation in place, problematic samples are identified and taken care of with ease.
Previously, collecting biological data in a manual system for 96-well plates or hundreds of samples was extremely inefficient and inevitably led to human errors. With Labguru, all biological information characterizing the samples is uploaded automatically using a powerful automation that processes measurements and other raw data files.
“Labguru’s automation saves hours of manual data input, freeing up valuable research time but also reducing human error.”
They also have automation that creates plate layouts according to predefined rules and one that translates instrument output into new sample registration – again saving ample time and reducing human error.
Excellent Customer Service
Rather than tell you how Adi is finding Labguru’s best-in-class customer support, we thought it would be better to hear it directly from him:
“The support you give us is truly phenomenal. You fix things very fast and think outside the box to get things working and optimized as soon as possible. You’re always available to help and have really helped us – it’s been a pleasure working with you”
KulaOmics' lab team is enjoying the flexibility that the Labguru system offers. They can implement system changes swiftly and independently, and no longer rely on other company teams. For example, they’re now able to scrap an experiment (whether it be due to a mistake or to conduct a different one) and start again. Previously, they were given no choice and had to go to great lengths to make changes – these required significant time and manual labor.
Further flexibility in the system was evident when they decided to change all the barcodes on their samples and equipment. Something that would previously have been a challenging task of extensive, time-consuming manual labor became a swift, straightforward process thanks to Labguru’s intuitive system.
Inventory Management
Labguru’s inventory module is used to store the valuable sample information processed and analyzed across their different pipelines.
KulaOmics uses both Labguru’s ELN and Inventory Management modules, allowing the samples to be directly linked to experiments and any changes in one area to be automatically updated in the other. Thanks to the Audit Window tool, they can also view the history of the sample, and track its status, changes, or any other valuable information all on one screen.
Their microbiome process isn’t linear – samples can be eliminated, moved forward, or reversed back to an earlier stage. To track this, KulaOmics uses custom fields to control the process and gain greater clarity as to where each sample goes and what actions need to be taken. They can filter samples based on these fields, perform bulk actions, or pull-out specific samples from specific plates for special treatment.
Results
“We have the capacity and capability to work conveniently with much higher sample numbers”
KulaOmics can process hundreds of samples/week across all pipelines and have the capability to significantly scale up as needed.
“Our huge sample-processing capabilities are largely down to the robust automation we have set up – everything from QC to updating sample data is now more efficient and can proceed with minimal human input”.
In addition to transforming the overall efficiency of their daily operations, the main time saver has come from the independence that Labguru gives KulaOmics’ lab team. Gone are the days of asking for favors from other teams within the company – now real, fast support from Labguru is a simple email away.
Minor changes and bugs can be fixed by Labguru’s excellent customer support immediately, and with urgent matters “customer support works hard to fix them as fast as they can”. This has allowed his team to make real, implementable changes to their system in less than 24 hours, rather than waiting weeks.
This independence is closely linked to the flexibility Labguru offers them. Switching sample kits used to take weeks – now they can do this in less than a day. And Improving their robust QC automation has allowed them to further reduce human errors and boost efficiency across the board.
Executive management has been impressed by the elevated quality and pace that the lab team are working at, particularly around the creation of new pipelines. When they set up their new vaginal pipeline, they could duplicate and edit many of the modules from existing pipelines. This allowed them to create and activate the pipeline in less than two weeks – an achievement management found “seriously impressive”.
An Eye to the Future
Supported by Labguru and its automated processes, KulaOmics will be able to scale up their LIMS pipelines and monitor hundreds of samples in various biological protocols.
With new pipelines on the horizon, KulaOmics can rely on Labguru to scale up their capabilities without scaling their manual labor.
To gain a better overview of the lab operations, they’re also looking to start using our Dashboards feature. This tool will enable them to create detailed reports, identify bottlenecks, monitor the progression of samples through the pipeline, and optimize processes at various stages.