biorails request fulfilment - drug discovery informatics … - re… · · 2013-05-26biorails...

BioRails Request

Fulfilment Driving Discovery Research

The BioRails request fulfilment and work flow solution facilitates

the progression of compounds from early screening to late stage

safety assessment, commonly known as the compound cascade.

The work flow closes the loop between requests for compounds to

be tested against sets of assays and selection of compounds for

further assessment. Typically this process is done manually by

scientists through emails with limited tracking. The request

fulfilment work flow solution is designed to support project teams

tracking progress of the project and services teams managing their

work load to ensure smooth transfer of information and traceable

progress of compounds across the cascade.

“Managing research projects is always a challenge, the BioRails

request fulfilment solution helps project leaders drive research

forward and scientists to manage their work efficiently whilst

managers can track the progress of the project”

Request fulfilment work flow solution

Copyright The Edge ©2009 Page 1 of 14

Request fulfilment

work flow The coordination of research

activities between scientists,

disciplines and across

laboratories, departments

and sites is one of the key

challenges facing

pharmaceutical companies.

The organisation and execution modules of BioRails are combined to provide a request fulfilment solution

allowing project teams to drive the research process through request for services to be executed against a list of

items. This is linked to a set of service queues which are used by laboratory managers to organise the fulfilment of

work orders and deliver final results back to the requesting project teams for decision making.

Basic concepts

The request-fulfilment work flow has been designed to focus on the needs, skills and expectations of

pharmaceutical R&D scientists.

We have identified three types of scientists using the system:

1. Project Lead (Walter Skinner) - drives research through the submission of requests

2. Lab Manager (Dana Scully) - manages the fulfilment of requests by scheduling experiments and allocating

work to her team

3. Bench Scientist (Diana Fowler) - completes a set of tasks that appear on her to-do list resulting in the

processing of request items

Simple, traceable requests

The process of making a request is very simple. A list of items (usually items such as compounds, libraries or

targets) is submitted to a collection of services with a required date and a requested priority. Once submitted,

the requester can track the status of the request and, once completed, retrieve the results.

Walter, the project lead is expected to drive the research process or cascade forward. This requires access to high

quality biological information from which he can formulate and refine his hypothesis. For any set of compounds,

it is likely that he will need data from a range of assays, for example screening data against multiple targets or a

compound profile covering efficacy, behavioural side effects, and ADME properties. On initiation of the project

the team will define a set of activities and an outline order, often referred to as a flow scheme or plan for the

project. In the lead optimisation phase compounds must be submitted to a series of assays that are used to

explore the structure activity relationship (SAR). Requests are often made by selecting columns of the SAR and

submitting compounds to services that deliver these results.



Whilst he has a good understanding of the data generated during the cascade, he does not necessarily need or

want to know how the assays are conducted. For example he may request for a compound to be tested without

specifying a specific batch or sample. The biologist will request delivery of assay ready plates as part of the

fulfilment process without the knowledge of the requester.

In this example four compounds have been submitted for testing against three services.



The progress of requests can be tracked throughout the life time of the request from acceptance to delivery of

results which can be accessible directly from the request. Each service item (compound) is automatically passed

to a matching service queue managed by the laboratory manager responsible for the service.

Triage, reviewing the requests

The lab manager, Dana, will review the service queue, accepting, rejecting or forwarding either the full request or

individual items within it. She receives requests from multiple projects teams and can prioritise requests

according to project priorities and operational considerations. The project team can provide comments and

documentation along with the original request stored within the request folder. The service queue is used to

distribute the work load amongst relevant team members. Once completed, she will review the work and

complete the request, placing any documentation or reports in the request folder which are delivered with the

completed request.



Processing the request items

The lab manager, Dana, will schedule experiments using the work flow module, automatically incorporated

request items into tasks which are allocated to scientists within her team1. Diana, the bench scientist simply

works through the tasks in her to-do list or calendar. Tasks can also be accessed from the MS Office environment

using office productivity tools like Excel to complete her work. Dana can plan and schedule her teams work

together with their other commitments using Outlook.

Lab managers can design the work flow such that information related to request items such as the compound

molecular weight or structures are automatically available. The work flow designs can be used again and again to

facilitate routine work, but are flexible enough to allow variation supporting less routine experiments such as in

vivo pharmacology and behavioural studies.

1 This is an optional step and only required if data is to be 'returned' to the original request when the task is published.



Publishing the results

During completion of the task, Diana will add end point data, reports and references to operational systems used

to capture data, facilitating delivery of results which can be seen from the service queue by Dana. If she is

satisfied with the quality of the data she will publish the tasks and results which can be retrieved by the project

lead from the original request.

Follow up

A request can be used in one of two ways:

• as a working list, adding and removing items and services as required

• as a discrete request for service with a finite life time

Requests can be modified at any time, adding and removing request items and/or services.

Work flow

Pre-requisites

Before using the request-fulfilment work flow the service provider must create a queue as part of the assay

definition. For example the assay development lab manager may offer an assay development service queue

accepting requests for assays to be created for a given set of targets.



The request fulfilment work flow can be used without the execution module as the scheduling of an experiment

to fulfil the request is optional. The scientists can manually complete the request items and place results and

documentation in the request folder. This provides a general purpose request management system.



Key forms

Requests

Walter will create a request from his home page or from the home page of a discovery project. Walter will add

some basic information about the request, including a comment, requested completion date and priority. He will

then select the services required and the compounds to process. These items are not submitted until he presses

submit.

The requester can add or

remove items and services at

any point. Each request has a

request folder in which to store

files, results and reports.



Once the request is submitted the above report can be used to monitor the status of items against the requested

services. This will be updated as the service providers review and process their queues. The project leader can

track the progress of fulfilment and, once published, access the results directly from the 'Results' link

Request-service queue

All the request items are submitted to service queues for each of the requested services. The corresponding

request for the 'Bioavailability' service is shown below. An overview of requests submitted to the service is

provided for the lab manager for Bioavailability. The Lab Manager, Dana can change the status of the whole

request or handle each of the request items independently. She can also forward some or all of the request items

to other members of her team to distribute the work load.

Any changes to the status of the

request items can be tracked in

the original request.

This provides a general way of

tracking requests for work and

processing of request items.



Scheduling and planning

In order to fulfil requests from multiple project teams in the most efficient way possible, Dana will schedule

experiments based on assay definitions defining the process and work flow of the service. Dana distributes the

work as a set of tasks which she allocates to team members. She can check the availability of her team in Outlook

and reschedule the work accordingly.

Task overview

The bench scientist Diana Fowler simply logs in and checks her to-do list and calendar. She is a single click away

from the experimental instructions and a place to summarise the results. The request fulfilment work flow

incorporates active request items into her experimental tasks, connecting requests for work with the results of

data capture. For example end-point data such as an IC50 for a compound can be automatically reported back to

the original requester.



In this way fulfilment of requests can be automatic, as tasks containing the requested items are completed the

status of all related request items will be updated.

Reporting

The request status report illustrates the status of each request item against each requested service. This is

displayed on the request and the requester's dashboard. There are a number of methods available for making

the 'results' of the request available to the requester.

Request folder

Results and documentation can be

added to the request folder, such as

Excel files, reports or links to data

held in separate systems such as LIMS

and ELN.

Results can be saved to the request

folder in the form of a 'snap-shot'

report.



The results can be transferred to MS Excel or other application for analysis. In the example below we have

pivoted the results in MS Excel to identify the selective hits. Integration with more advanced scientific analysis

tools can be achieved either through MS Excel or using the BioRails web services.

The results of analysis can easily be loaded into the BioRails folder system including images, charts and other

embedded objects using BioRails4Office.



Publishing tasks

The Lab Manager, Dana will review the data provided by her team and if satisfied with the quality of

their work she will publish the request data by changing the status to ‘published’. Results can now

be accessed directly from the request.

The results can be output to Excel as a CSV file.



Summary The request fulfilment work flow solution provides an effective solution for driving and tracking

projects through requests for service and fulfilment with results. The BioRails solution is designed to

scale across large organisations covering many sites across the globe and to handle thousands of

users. This is a unique solution specifically for the pharmaceutical R&D environment, designed to

smooth the transfer of work requests from multiple teams into service groups handling fulfilment

with many types of system from LIMS to ELN. The BioRails Request Fulfilment work flow solution

compliments any R&D environment making the process of Pharmaceutical R&D more transparent

and manageable.

System requirements 100% web: Java script compatible browser

Linux web server (SUSE11, RHES5)

Windows XP or greater, Office 2003 or greater for BioRails4Office

Contact Email: [email protected]

Telephone: +44(0)2380411098 Fax: +44 (0) 8715 210018

Address: The Edge Software Consultancy Ltd, 77 Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey, GU1

4UH UK

biorails request fulfilment - drug discovery informatics … - re… · · 2013-05-26biorails...

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