New LIMS module fast-tracks metabolism study reporting

15 December 2009

Scientists seeking to profile the metabolism of radio-labelled compounds need to summarise their chromatography data in many ways - by comparing species differences or dose routes, for example, or by viewing the metabolism of the compound over time.

Previously the usual method for doing this was to extract the information from the radiochromatography software (such as LabLogic'’s market-leading Laura) and then paste it into Excel, where it could be combined with percent information from the LIMS to calculate the concentration or recovery of major metabolites.

Now LabLogic has developed a new module in its own specialist ADME LIMS Debra that removes the requirement to use Excel. It also performs all the calculations required to prepare pooled samples, and tracks the theoretical and actual activity within each one.

When this module is linked to Laura 4, customers find that they can typically save up to five man days per project because they no longer have to spend valuable time producing tables manually and having each cell QC’d for accuracy.

Huw Loaring, LabLogic’'s system director, says: "We find many customers add this pooling module to their existing Debra implementations when they are upgrading. Some of those who use it have even commented that on its own it almost doubles the time they save per study on reporting and QC checking."

Debra’s HPLC report can be used for both in vivo and in vitro data. It can group metabolites either by name or by retention time (with a predefined tolerance for retention shift), and can be programmed to select only significant metabolites over a certain percentage of the total activity.