Learn / User feedback
Q & A sessions
A conversation with Dr Alex Swarbrick, head of the Tumour Progression Research Group at The Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia
Q. Tell us a bit about your group and the research you are doing.
We are a group of 9, with diverse backgrounds and training, including students, research assistants, postdocs and a pathologist. We investigate the molecular pathways that are mutated or deregulated in cancer, with the aim of identifying new prognostic factors or therapeutic targets. We have a particular interest in breast cancer.
Q. You were using Catalyzer, a predecessor to eCAT. What was it in your research process that gave rise to the need to document it electronically in a single environment?
Many of our projects overlap so use common reagents, protocols, etc. The most important feature we needed from eCAT was to allow everyone in the team to manage shared facilities, reagents, results and ideas. That meant that access should be quick, easy and intuitive yet powerful enough to handle ~ 10 persons’ worth of information.
Q. You have been testing the beta version of eCAT more or less since the start of beta testing in September 2008. Tell us how you have been using it.
eCAT is absolutely essential to the running of my lab. Everyone uses it as an electronic notebook, so they can compile the diverse collections of data that we generate as biologists, such as images and spreadsheets. We use to it to take minutes of meetings. We also use it to manage our common stocks of antibodies, plasmids and so on. Finally, perhaps the most important feature for us is the ability to link records, reagents and experiments. This allows us, for example, to connect an experimental mouse with the tube containing its tissues in the freezer, to the 6 different experiments (conducted over a year) that analysed those tissues in different ways. Managing this kind of ‘metadata’ is absolutely essential to our work, and very difficult to do without tools like eCAT.
Q. What kind of feedback have you been getting from others in your lab?
People are very happy with eCAT. They appreciate how the organization that it brings to the lab makes their time more effective and productive (and often less stressful!).
Q. How do you see eCAT as a platform for your group as it continues to expand in terms of both more lab members and new kinds of research?
I think eCAT will be become more important as the group grows, since it becomes harder to keep in touch with everyone’s work. For example, I can use eCAT to remind myself of recent experimental results without hassling someone in the lab. It also facilitates collaboration within and outside of the lab. I also know that data is being properly catalogued and experiments are being written up and that all this is backed up every night. Since everyone uses the same interface, it is easier for new people to understand the way the lab works and to pickup on projects.