Background
Our Laboratory Management Information System (LIMS) automates the tracking of sample data
in a quick, efficient and private electronic environment.
The Bio-informatics team came together at The Feinstein Institute for Medical
Research in 1999 with the start of the Biopository program. It was the need to
automate the standard laboratory processes of data collection that led to
development of the state-of-the-art biorepository robotic system. Initially,
we used Microsoft Access to collect and store data. We were juggling tens of
thousands of samples, including 18,000 DNA samples from the New York Cancer
Project. We soon realized that the file based system was not scalable, so
we moved to an enterprise based system in 2001 -- the SQL Server with a Visual
Basic front end application. As newer technology improved, we kept pace.
We are now running the newest and latest versions of the Microsoft software.