Abstract
Background: Increasing concerns emerge regarding the limited success in reproducing research results. This is a major problem for science, society and economy. Driven by industry or scientific networks, several attempts to combat this crisis are initiated. However, only few measures address the applicability and feasibility of implementation of actions into an academic research environment with limited resources. Methods: Here we propose a strategy catalogue aiming for a quality management system suitable for many research labs. Our proposal is guided by its inexpensiveness and possibility of rapid installation. Moreover, we restrict presentations of our actions on those for what we received a positive feedback by the users regarding its applicability. For this we used eLabFTW, an electronic lab book, as hub for all other components of our quality management system (QMS). Storage of lab journals and project management will be done there as well. Standard operation procedures have been introduced. Those will be stored in eLabFTW too. Furthermore, we implemented a bio bank for safer long term storage of bio samples and cryo-cultures of cell lines. Next we set up a lab meeting as feedback mechanism for the QMS. In a final step we implemented an automated pipeline to be used for example for drug screens. Results: With this effort we want to reduce individual differences in work techniques, to further improve the quality of our results. Although, just recently established, we can already observe positive outcomes in quality of experimental results, improvements in sample and data storage, stakeholder engagement and even promotion of new scientific discoveries. Conclusions: We believe that our experiences can help to establish a road map to increase value and output of preclinical research in academic labs with limited budget and personnel.
Highlights
Increasing concerns emerge regarding the limited success in reproducing data and translating research results into applications
Apart our open visibility of progress reports and feedback to all team members ensuring full transparency for all stakeholders, we have set up visibility-restricted sub projects. Those more restricted groups are intended to exchange workin–progress documents between the individual user and the leadership, that have certain impact on the “outside-presentation” of the lab, such as presentations or manuscript drafts. We found this virtual project development-meeting platform enables efficient time management of the leadership and has been proven suitable to be conform with guidelines to minimize social contact, that have been stated by governments worldwide to fight the Covid-19 pandemic
In our experience the approach of using an all-digital lab book with shared reading rights and automated storage of raw data, does guarantee data management according to FAIR8 or increase the transparency according to the Hong Kong principles[9 ], and helps to increase motivation of the team in general and thereby improving scientific development of the users
Summary
Increasing concerns emerge regarding the limited success in reproducing data and translating research results into applications. This is a major problem for science, society and economy. Methods: Here we propose a strategy catalogue aiming for a quality management system suitable for many research labs, on the example of a cell culture focused laboratory. Our proposal is guided by its inexpensiveness and possibility of rapid installation. For this we used eLabFTW, an electronic lab book, as hub for all other components of our Quality Management System (QMS) and digital storage of lab journals. Just recently established, we can already observe positive outcomes in quality of experimental results, improvements in sample and data storage, stakeholder engagement and even promotion of version 2
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