Derek Wachtel, scientist in the DMPK department at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Mingliang Bao, PhD, senior scientist at Labstat International ULC, talk to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, regarding various issues they face with sample prep in their laboratories. They both stress that sample prep is very important and a necessary step in any analysis and with newer technologies making it easier and faster to accomplish, there should be no reason to ignore or overlook it.

Geoffrey Bartholomeusz, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics and director of the siRNA Core Facility at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about why there is a growing interest in replacing some 2D cell culture applications with 3D cell cultures. He talks about where and why he uses 3D-based cell cultures in his lab and what lab managers should take into consideration before making the investment in this innovative technology.

Amrita Cheema, PhD, associate professor and codirector of the Proteomics and Metabolomics Shared Resource at Georgetown University Medical Center, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about the growing use of mass spectrometry as a tool for detecting biomarkers for early prediction and diagnosis of disease, leading to personalized therapy. She highlights that improvements in software
and hardware have led to better resolution and specificity, which in turn have increased the use of this technology for biomarker discovery and will potentially help pave its path into the clinic as a diagnostic tool.

Ike Harper, director for laboratory innovation at Johnson & Johnson, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about the advantages of consolidating lab services with one provider. He explains in great
detail the steps taken at J&J to ensure that the right process and vendor were put in place in order to give the program the time and opportunity it needed to succeed. He emphasizes the need for external validation as well as internal communication and collaboration to get the necessary buy-in and support from the key people involved.

Steve Thomas, an investigator within the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics department at GSK, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about his experiences implementing a database of
metabolic knowledge that helps the company store, share, and search data around the globe. The process involved analyzing internal needs, evaluating several options, and finding the right informatics solution to give GSK scientists access to each other’s findings to prevent error, repetition, or inefficiency.

Nongjian Tao, PhD, director of the Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute and professor in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about a new technique called plasmonic-based electrochemical microscopy (P-ECM) developed in his lab for imaging localized chemical reactions from single nanoparticles. He talks about the advantages of this technique when compared to conventional optical microscopy and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) and its potential uses in diverse areas.

David Patterson, PhD, professor of computer science at the University of California at Berkeley, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about big data—what it is, where it applies, and what lab managers can expect to gain by investing in it. He also provides guidance on where people can get more
information about (and help with) big data and the possible concerns they need to be aware of.

Louis Scampavia, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about how automation has been a critical part of their high-throughput screening activities. He goes into the details of what can and should be automated and the due diligence that needs to be performed before these decisions are made—decisions that have a long-standing impact on the workings of a lab.

Philip Schwartz, PhD, supervisor and senior scientist and director of the National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County Research Institute, talks to Contributing Editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about the subtle particulars and expertise needed to design and maintain a laboratory dedicated to culturing stem cells.

Justin Ringling, senior scientist in Analytical R&D at Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, talks to contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, about his work, which involves developing and validating analytical methods using HPLC, UHPLC, ICP, and MS.

Contributing editor Tanuja Koppal, PhD, talks to Sunia Trauger, PhD, director of the Small Molecule Mass Spectrometry facility at Harvard University, about the recent trends in mass spectrometry. Advances in instrumentation, automation, and remote access seem to be leading the way to improved detection, faster results, and more diverse applications. While challenges in sample prep and data analysis remain issues, access to emerging informatics tools and experience handling and analyzing samples seem to mitigate some of the problems.

Tips for evaluating and implementing the right electronic lab notebook (ELN)