Cyrus Biotechnology
Sam DeLucaDirector of Engineering
What was your process of selecting an electronic lab notebook?
We went through same the process for each of the tools we were evaluating – getting demos set up and getting the provider under NDA. This way, we were able to use real experimental data and have our employees try taking real notes, and uploading and working with their actual data in the system to see how it would work for them.
Can you tell us about you, and your lab’s research focus?
My current role is the Director of Engineering at Cyrus Biotechnology. Our story is an unusual one – we started out as a software company developing web-based tools for molecular modeling. Over the past few years, we have evolved into a drug discovery company with an emphasis on computational and machine learning-based development of engineered proteins. We now have a pipeline of protein-based therapeutics in development, and several partnerships with other companies.
The computational half of the company performs computational drug development, and the more conventional half performs bench science where we handle the experimental validation and also other types of screening and in-house in vivo/in vitro assays.
[Cyrus Biotechnology] started out as a software company developing web-based tools for molecular modeling. Over the past few years, we have evolved into a drug discovery company with an emphasis on computational and machine learning-based development of engineered proteins.
How did you decide to start using an ELN notebook in your lab?
Before we had a wet lab, we were using another small ELN, which was something that worked well for the computational researchers. However, when we brought our wet lab work in-house instead of using CROs, the other ELN didn’t really work well for the wet lab scientists. So, we started from scratch, searching for an appropriate electronic lab notebook system, and SciNote was one that was within our budget and that everyone liked.
By the time we got our search underway, the team had basically abandoned the other ELN system. We were using Google Drive, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets that we were emailing each other. So, although we did have an ELN; in practice nobody was using it.
By the time we got our search underway, the team had basically abandoned the other ELN system. We were using Google Drive, Word documents, and Excel spreadsheets that we were emailing each other. So, although we did have an ELN; in practice nobody was using it.
What was your process of selecting an ELN? What were the main reasons you chose SciNote?
I talked to others in similar types of biotech companies, and Googled around to see what’s available. We explored full-on demos with 5-6 options, including SciNote; it was a fairly involved process.
The issue with the other ELN came down to a fairly qualitative problem that people had with the user experience, rather than specific missing features. Being qualitative made the selection harder, because it’s not like we need a tool that does a specific thing and that we keep looking until we find a tool that does that thing the best. What we actually needed was an electronic lab notebook that people were actually going to use, so we wanted people in the lab to try doing real things with each and to really test each ELN.
We ended up with SciNote and another major ELN as the two finalists. But the alternative was really very expensive relative to SciNote, and the decision ended up being easy and we went with SciNote. It was just so much more affordable – “room to hire another lab employee, or a full-time data management admin assistant”- more affordable.
The issue with the other ELN came down to a fairly qualitative problem that people had with the user experience, rather than specific missing features…What we actually needed was an electronic lab notebook that people were actually going to use, so we wanted people in the lab to try doing real things with each and to really test each ELN.
What was the process of implementing SciNote in your lab?
The SciNote support team did an outstanding job with the customer success side of things. One of the things that was initially challenging with SciNote is that it is conceptually a different layout to other ELNs. Our Customer Success Manager, Audrey, did a really good job in helping us figure out exactly how to use SciNote effectively.
We went through and started with a couple of our prospective users who had been very engaged in the demo process, and they started using it first in order to develop best practices. We then talked to Audrey to see if these practices made sense, and then we disseminated that to our wet-biology bench scientists. We are onboarding the computational team, which is a little bit more complicated. But our primary concern was with the bench side of the lab, and they are all on board now.
One of the things that was initially challenging with SciNote is that it is conceptually a different layout to other ELNs. Our Customer Success Manager, Audrey, did a really good job in helping us figure out exactly how to use SciNote effectively.
What benefits did you see after you started using SciNote?
There are a couple of immediate benefits: One is that all the scientists are actually storing all their data in the same place. So that’s really useful in terms of internal communication. The other significant improvement is integration between the inventory system and the labeler. This has allowed us to get started with an organized and methodical system for labelling our samples. It’s an ongoing project, but it is going really well so far, being able to label samples and then linking them back to the notes.
Having a system that people are sufficiently comfortable with and where they are reliably putting data has been really beneficial, particularly as projects are scaling up. It’s the additional organization that comes with having a tool that people are able to use effectively that matters.
That’s what I noticed about these electronic lab notebooks out there. It’s not like there is one big game changer; it is a lot of little things that allow an organization to function more effectively.
Having a system that people are sufficiently comfortable with and where they are reliably putting data has been really beneficial, particularly as projects are scaling up.
What has your experience with the SciNote team been?
It’s been really good. As the Director of Engineering, I interact with quite a few Customer Success teams. Everyone at SciNote has been very responsive. It’s really easy to find help quickly to address our concerns, sort things out with the engineering team, or submit feature requests. SciNote is an easy and responsive company to interact with, and I really appreciate that. It’s not always true for other companies I’ve worked with. Sometimes you fire off a support request, and it just falls into an abyss, or you get answers that are not helpful, and you can never talk to a person on the phone – that’s not the case here. You are very easy to work with.
Everyone at SciNote has been very responsive. It’s really easy to find help quickly to address our concerns, sort things out with the engineering team, or submit feature requests.
Do you have any tips for others in academic research who are considering SciNote?
My suggestion would be for people to not get too hung up on the projects/experiments/tasks terminology that SciNote uses. Think more about each task as a block that you can build your protocol out of. That was a big hurdle for us because we don’t think about tasks. Take a step back and think about the data structure you can use to store information; how can you map these into your existing workflows? It’s a really a very flexible system if you start thinking about it that way.
My suggestion would be for people to not get too hung up on the projects/experiments/tasks terminology that SciNote uses. Think more about each task as a block that you can build your protocol out of.
Sam DeLuca was invited to share the company’s experience using SciNote due to the use case and familiarity with the product; the company received additional SciNote features for their participation.
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