Your New Lab Partner Is Like Alexa™, But With a Ph.D.
January 23, 2025
Voice-activated assistants have come a long way since 1952, when Bell Laboratories’ Automatic Digit Recognizer (AUDREY) was invented. The first personal computer with built-in voice recognition was released in 1984, although it had a limited vocabulary. In 1997, Dragon Naturally Speaking became a blockbuster product. In the last decade or so, deep neural networks have allowed the development of such household names as Alexa, Google™ Home, Siri™, and CORTANA™. Today, LabTwin is poised to become a laboratory name to fulfill a similar purpose to Alexa or Siri, but at a much more advanced level.
LabTwin, the AI-enabled and voice-activated digital lab assistant, is what you’d get if one of those household names were sent to a Ph.D. program to learn the scientific method, the language of your lab’s science, and typical laboratory protocols. It’s the smartest addition you can make to your lab using your AI budget.
The Unique Capabilities of a Ph.D.-Level Voice-activated Laboratory Assistant
When you onboard LabTwin to your lab, you immediately gain an assistant who is familiar with your lab’s protocols and can accurately capture spoken scientific language without autocorrecting it inappropriately to something else. LabTwin has been trained on a large language model of scientific terminology, which it can recognize with 95% accuracy.
LabTwin frees up the hands of your human technicians so they can focus on their experiments without having to worry about documenting their results while they happen or remembering data to record later. Research has shown that 79% of experimental data is not digitized at the bench, so a voice-activated lab assistant could help you change that.
Unlike human technicians, LabTwin has no trouble recording data in challenging conditions and is not encumbered by personal protective equipment in hazardous environments. If the operator can speak clearly into a headset, LabTwin can record data.
How a Voice-activated Laboratory Assistant Enhances Laboratory Efficiency
LabTwin can be prepopulated with common protocols for your laboratory or research focus. It can then guide you through those protocols, reducing the possibility of human error. Its hands-free operation means that technicians can use both hands to perform complicated experimental steps without having to flip through pages, scroll through screens, or push buttons. LabTwin can also help with time management, as it has a timer for use in specific steps. You can even have multiple timers going simultaneously. These incrementally small efficiency gains add up over the course of a workday and may add up to more than an hour and a half per scientist per week.
A Voice-activated Laboratory Assistant Improves Accuracy and Safety, Too
LabTwin helps your laboratory staff avoid common mistakes with verbal instructions for procedures. Step-by-step guidance makes completing an experiment or following a standard operating procedure much easier. LabTwin’s accurate voice-recognition capabilities automatically document results and observations.
Your Voice-activated Laboratory Assistant in Action
LabTwin has many applications. Here, we will look at a few examples.
- Because LabTwin can be used hands-free, it can capture data easily:
- in the field,
- in low-light environments,
- in clean rooms,
- in noisy environments or
- in confined spaces.
- In a research and development lab, LabTwin can help develop new protocols based on existing ones or document completely new procedures.
- LabTwin interfaces with laboratory instruments and with ELNs or LIMS. This enables seamless data flow from the lab bench to the system of record.
- LabTwin can also structure data into tables for importing to an ELN.
- LabTwin can be validated for use in regulated environments, ensuring that data integrity concerns are alleviated.
Adding a smart, flexible, voice-activated laboratory assistant to your lab can increase your data integrity, reduce human errors, and ensure compliance with relevant standards. Would you like an Alexa, Ph.D., for your lab? Reach out today to see a demo.
Reducing Lab Protocol Errors With LabTwin
December 19, 2024
Human errors are the most frequent cause of errors in the laboratory. Reducing these errors has been a key factor driving lab automation efforts. Lab automation has driven down the rate of human errors in the analytical phase of laboratory work, where instruments and analytical systems are involved. However, the unaddressed source of most human errors in the lab (or anywhere, for that matter) is omitting necessary task steps.
If you’d like to improve your lab’s error rate, read on to learn how LabTwin, the AI-enabled voice-powered digital lab assistant, can guide your researchers through protocols with confidence so that no step is missed.
Understanding the Root Causes of Lab Protocol Errors
Technicians in busy labs may run the same protocol hundreds of times a week. This familiarity can have them doing their job by rote or by muscle memory alone, as their minds may wander from a repetitive task.
However, skipping steps in a protocol is the greatest source of errors in analytical labs. Another common error is misreading or transposing a measurement value. The source of both error types often is distraction—either self-induced or related to ambient conditions like noise. LabTwin can substantially reduce these types of errors with its AI-enabled, voice-powered protocol guidance.
How LabTwin Reduces Lab Protocol Errors
Although automation has reduced the rate of errors in labs, skipping steps in protocols is still a major source of errors. LabTwin’s voice prompts guide users through specific protocols so that steps can be followed exactly. If a coworker interrupts you for a conversation, LabTwin knows where you left off so you can pick up your work in the right place.
Protocols can be loaded in LabTwin from published standards, but LabTwin also allows custom protocols to be built. The powerful AI in LabTwin, trained on a large language model of scientific terminology, is also capable of helping researchers design new protocols for innovative research.
Because LabTwin interfaces with your electronic lab notebook (ELN), laboratory information management system (LIMS), or individual laboratory instruments, all measurement data flows seamlessly into your systems without the possibility of human error. Captured data can also be structured automatically into tables and reports, eliminating interpretation errors.
No matter how noisy your lab may be, LabTwin has been optimized to recognize an individual’s speech patterns to prevent accidental overlap of instructions. Multiple people can conduct experiments in close proximity without worrying about cross-contamination of data capture.
Managing Lab Protocols to Reduce Errors
LabTwin understands complex scientific terminology and captures 99% of all data accurately the first time. LabTwin makes it easy to update protocols as your research evolves. Watch LabTwin guide a researcher through a pipetting protocol here.
The voice-activated features of LabTwin produce replicable results when following standard protocols. Your lab staff no longer have to worry about missing a step when momentarily distracted or forgetting to log a measurement result. These things are monitored automatically by your digital lab assistant.
In addition to reducing protocol errors, LabTwin reduces the amount of time that researchers spend on documentation. Information that previously needed to be transcribed by hand is now automatically captured, hands-free, by LabTwin.
Are skipped steps in your protocols introducing errors in your lab? Reach out to see how LabTwin can help.
Capitalizing on FAIR Data from Your Voice-powered Laboratory Assistant
November 14, 2024
According to the 2021 State of Open Data report (the most recent year in which a question was asked about FAIR data), 54% of respondents (scientific researchers) thought their data was at least somewhat compliant with the FAIR data principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. This obviously leaves room for improvement. FAIR data is a key component of achieving the lab of the future and Industry 4.0, no matter what your lab’s specialization is. This blog post will explore how voice-powered laboratory assistants can support the generation of FAIR data.
Understanding the Role of FAIR Data in Your Lab
Structuring data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable is the first step toward making better use of that data with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Making data FAIR consists of six key activities: documentation, file formats, metadata, access to the data, persistent identifiers, and data licenses. It can be much easier to apply these activities to data that will be generated rather than to existing data, but it is possible to retroactively apply data FAIRification, and there are compelling reasons why you should. Data that is FAIR leads to enhanced collaboration and data sharing, not only within your lab but across the organization. FAIR data also improves the reproducibility and integrity of original research, a key pillar of the scientific method.
How Voice-powered Laboratory Assistants Contribute to FAIR Data Generation
In previous blog posts, we have covered the different types of voice-activated lab assistants and what they can do in your lab. A voice-activated lab assistant can improve data capture and enhance GxP compliance. A voice-activated lab assistant will automatically structure data and interface with your laboratory information management system so that it is properly archived. These features contribute to making your data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
Specifically, a voice-powered laboratory assistant like LabTwin supports FAIR data generation in the following ways:
Findability
- Facilitate easy data access and retrieval
- All captured data is immediately searchable
- Voice commands tie to metadata
- Data is structured automatically
Accessibility
- Ensure data is accessible to diverse stakeholders
- Provide user access controls to ensure data integrity
- Support multiple users with voice recognition and user-friendly interfaces
- Provide training and user guidelines for effective voice interaction
- Each user chooses a different activation word so that LabTwin recognizes who is speaking
Interoperability
- Integrate with existing databases and systems
- Standardize data formats and protocols
- Allow alternative forms of input for contemporaneous information
Reusability
- Encourage data reuse through comprehensive documentation and annotation
- Prompt for necessary context and metadata during data capture
How LabTwin Overcomes Challenges to Voice-powered FAIR Data Generation
LabTwin is designed to overcome the common challenges in voice-powered laboratory assistants. LabTwin has been trained with a large language model (LLM) of pharmaceutical, life sciences, and chemical terminology. The underlying model can be pretrained with terminology specific to your lab. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been applied in LabTwin to enable it to recognize accented English.
Predictive text was formerly rigid and unable to accurately predict the third word in a sequence from the first two words. This approach has been replaced by word vectoring and context-based predictions. LabTwin understands that contextual information such as “cell line” is often followed by a sample ID. This rigorous training eliminates most of the issues related to voice-recognition accuracy and understanding technical jargon.
LabTwin addresses data privacy and security concerns with robust data governance frameworks. User access controls ensure that all data maps to the correct originator. Each user chooses a unique activation word to avoid misattribution.
Future Trends for FAIR Data in Laboratories
Voice-powered technology will continue to make advances in laboratory settings, which will drive efficiency and innovation. Adding AI and ML capabilities will someday enable voice recognition in any language. Improved data capture and automatic data structuring will increase the production of FAIR data at the source, all while reducing human errors. These trends will continue to improve data management in scientific research, enabling its reuse and improving accessibility.
How could you use voice-powered technology to support your lab’s generation of FAIR data?
GxP Compliance Support With LabTwin
October 24, 2024
LabTwin is built on three pillars—its AI-powered large language model, its integration with the lab informatics landscape, and its support for general good practices (GxP); whether those be manufacturing, clinical, laboratory, or documentation. Previous blog posts described how the AI features in the LabTwin voice-powered digital lab assistant support the Lab of the Future and how LabTwin integrates with other systems and instruments. Here, we’ll look at the third pillar that underlies LabTwin’s software, support for GxP organizations. This support is provided by ensuring compliance and supporting good practices, two functions that overlap.
Ensuring Compliance and Data Integrity
Ensuring regulatory compliance and maintaining data integrity is an understandably crucial concern in many labs. The LabTwin digital lab assistant facilitates documentation and data security. LabTwin can help your scientists generate accurate and organized documentation and reports of experiments and results. LabTwin also simplifies the creation of audit trails and the maintenance of regulatory compliance. For example, LabTwin is compliant with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation 21 CFR Part 11, for electronic recordkeeping.
Good laboratory practices (GLP) are assessed by the ALCOA framework, an acronym that stands for attributable, legible, contemporaneous, original, and accurate. LabTwin supports this framework with its access control and accurate data capture. Records of all actions taken in the lab can be captured as they happen, at the bench. ALCOA+ adds Complete, Consistent, and Enduring to the original framework; LabTwin’s records are compliant with these additions as well.
The LabTwin digital lab assistant ensures data security and privacy through encryption and access control with ISO 27001 and 27017 certifications. LabTwin is hosted by Amazon Web Services and all data sent over the Internet to LabTwin servers and between various services is encrypted with TLS/SSL connections. These features play an important role in maintaining data integrity and protecting intellectual property.
Supporting Good Practices
The basics of good practices (in whatever setting they are applied) are the same across the globe. These baseline practices (manufacturing, clinical, laboratory, documentation) help to ensure the quality of the final product, whether that is a medicine, a food, or a cosmetic, among many other consumer goods. LabTwin supports these GxP environments.
LabTwin’s voice-capture capabilities ensure complete documentation no matter where the technician is making notes. In clinical labs, it isn’t necessary to remove personal protective equipment (PPE) to record observations in settings where methods must be conducted in the dark, such as fluorescence microscopy, the voice-powered data capture that the LabTwin digital lab assistant improves the reliability and accuracy of the experimental results. In any regulatory setting where both of a technician’s hands may be needed to ensure the safety of the experiment or process, this voice-capture ability is crucial.
Modernize Your Laboratory With LabTwin
The three pillars of the LabTwin digital lab assistant work together to add functionality and accuracy to any lab. You can perform more efficiently, safely, and securely with LabTwin’s AI-enabled and voice-powered features.
See the Future of Lab Efficiency with the Latest Release of LabTwin—Now GxP Compliant
October 24, 2024
Join Jeroen de Haas, LabTwin Head of Product, for an Ask the Expert session November 13 at 11:30 a.m. EST
“LabTwin reduces the regulatory risks associated with error-prone, paper-based manual processes. LIMS Wizards is excited to bring these capabilities to life science researchers in North America.” — Michael Barkan
NEWARK, DE, UNITED STATES, October 24, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — LIMS Wizards, LLC, a global scientific software solutions provider, is pleased to announce that LabTwin, the leading AI- and voice-powered smart lab assistant supports good laboratory practices (GLP) and good clinical practices (GCP). LabTwin has robust data capture capabilities and enables hands-free accuracy in documentation, wherever a technician may be.
“LabTwin reduces the regulatory risks associated with error-prone, paper-based manual processes. LIMS Wizards is excited to bring these GxP capabilities to life science researchers in North America,” explains Michael Barkan, Validation Delivery Manager.
Now users can take advantage of the Report Editor in LabTwin to compile all their data into a GLP-compliant document. Using LabTwin at the bench gives scientists a simple tool to track protocol deviations, capture observations, follow standard operating procedures, and take notes without risk of forgetting something mid-procedure. LabTwin even captures data in the dark or while the user is in full protective gear. Jeroen de Haas, LabTwin Head of Product, will demonstrate these capabilities live on November 13 at 11:30 a.m. EST.
LabTwin acts as a mobile companion in the lab, guiding scientists through the steps of protocols and experiments while capturing observations, results, or pictures in real-time and in context. The advanced voice technology is based on large natural language processing models, combined with laboratory-specific training, which enables LabTwin to surpass the accuracy of other digital assistants. LabTwin can structure the captured data using FAIR data principles, incorporate metadata and results, and be configured with company-specific terminology and workflows. It can also be interfaced with ELN or LIMS software if desired.
LIMS Wizards provides LabTwin to scientists across the United States and Canada to enable better scientific efforts. Join us on November 13 at 11:30 a.m. EST to see how LabTwin can support GxP in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device laboratories.
You can read more about how LabTwin works here.
About LIMS Wizards, LLC
LIMS Wizards, LLC, a global scientific software solutions provider, develops intuitive products that fulfill unmet needs at the interface of the lab and the rest of the organization. Our products encourage organizational digital transformation and improve scientific data integrity, visualization, and analytics. Our solutions are designed for simple implementation, so those who use scientific data can be guided to wise business decisions.
Megan Cavanaugh
LIMS Wizards
+1 302-731-5290
email us here
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Try Out the Future of Lab Efficiency at the Gulf Coast Conference 2024
October 1, 2024
Discover how LabTwin can transform your organization’s operations and elevate safety standards
LIMS Wizards, a global scientific software solutions provider, is attending the Gulf Coast Conference to showcase LabTwin, the AI-powered and voice-activated digital lab assistant. LabTwin can improve your organization’s efficiency with mobile and hands-free data capture and access, while also protecting personnel who don’t have to remove safety equipment to log observational data. LabTwin has many applications in the chemical and petrochemical industries, including analytical method development, maintenance operations and monitoring, or automatic data processing and reporting.
The Gulf Coast Conference offers a robust technical program to professionals in the chemical and petrochemical industries. This year’s show takes place October 15 and 16 at the Moody Gardens Convention Center in Galveston, Texas. LIMS Wizards will be demonstrating LabTwin at booth 1121. While at the booth, attendees can register for an upcoming Ask the Expert session on November 6, 2024, with Jeroen de Haas, LabTwin Head of Product.
Be sure to stop by at the show for a conversation about how LabTwin can solve specific problems with methods, maintenance, and reporting in your lab. If you can’t be there in person, check out the LIMS Wizards website for informative content including videos, webinars, and blogs.
About LIMS Wizards, LLC
LIMS Wizards, LLC is a global scientific software solutions provider developing intuitive software products to fulfill unmet needs at the interface of the lab and the rest of the organization. Our products are complementary to laboratory information management systems (LIMS) to encourage organizational digital transformation and improve scientific data integrity, visualization, and analytics. These solutions are designed for a simple implementation so those who use scientific data can be guided to wise business decisions. For more information about LIMS Wizards, visit www.limswizards.com.
Comparing Voice-activated Lab Assistants
September 19, 2024
Voice-activated lab assistants are becoming the new must-have feature in laboratory informatics. Once Siri and Alexa penetrated everyday life, it didn’t take long for scientists to think that a voice-activated assistant could be useful for their work, too. The first academic proof of concepts came as early as 2018. A year later, the world’s first voice-powered digital lab assistant was launched.
Today, voice-activated lab assistants come as add-ons to some laboratory information management systems (LIMS; like LabVantage’s experimental LOTTIE) or as a partner product with electronic lab notebooks (ELNs; such as Ascenscia). LabTwin is a standalone product that can interface with any ELN or LIMS. In this blog, we’ll compare the features and use cases of each of these products to help you make an informed choice about whether a voice-activated lab assistant will work in your lab and, if so, which one is the best fit.
Common Features of All Voice-activated Lab Assistants
Robust voice recognition accuracy is a prerequisite for a digital lab assistant. Most are built on a natural language processing model with 97% accuracy. They are able to recognize accented English and most can recognize commands in additional languages (commonly German, French, or Spanish). They integrate easily with LIMS or ELN and often with lab instruments, providing an audit trail and increased data integrity. All data is captured hands-free, which makes them well-suited for use in the field or in settings where personal protective equipment must be worn.
The learning curve for a voice-activated lab assistant is fast (as long as you’re not implementing new laboratory informatics software simultaneously), as they all come with support and customization to integrate seamlessly with your existing workflows. All digital lab assistants increase productivity and efficiency. Each voice-activated lab assistant will enable process and data standardization.
Each of these products has differentiators that may make one more suited for use in your environment than another.
Ascenscia Features and Use Cases
Ascenscia is an Eppendorf product that is compatible with their eLabNext suite of products, specifically eLabInventory and eLabJournal. It is capable of step-by-step guidance through protocols and of interfacing with inventory to locate samples in the lab. Ascenscia will record experiment notes for the scientist at the bench. Unique features of Ascenscia include:
- Capable of recognizing speech in five languages
- Data is saved in the ELN, not in the app
Ascenscia requires a valid ELN license but is free to download. It is suited for small labs like those in academia or startups. It can scale as your organization grows, with robust data integrity and increased efficiency.
LabTwin Features and Use Cases
LabTwin was the world’s first voice-powered digital lab assistant in 2019. LabTwin has many market-leading features, including its ability to capture and structure data in real time, meaning that it can populate tables of experiment data for export to any ELN or LIMS. LabTwin has a powerful AI backbone that can help to design protocols and experiments. Unique features of LabTwin include:
- Can be used by multiple scientists at the same time
- Provides audiovisual SOP guidance
- Uses the device camera for visual documentation
LabTwin is well suited for a wide range of environments, including clean rooms or in the dark. When your hands are full or you’re encased in protective gear, LabTwin will accurately capture your notes and observations, whether you’re speaking English or German.
LOTTIE Features and Use Cases
With the release of LabVantage version 8.7, the LabVantage Portal accepts voice commands based on the LabVantage Open Talk Interactive Experience (LOTTIE). This voice-activated lab assistant can be integrated with your LabVantage instance (it is not a standalone product) to perform functions that users have come to expect from a digital lab assistant. Unique features of LOTTIE include:
- Seamless integration with LabVantage LIMS
- Built into a web client Portal
Choosing the Most Appropriate Voice-activated Lab Assistant
Your choice of a voice-activated lab assistant will depend in part on your existing lab informatics footprint. It will also depend on your lab’s size and the specific functions you currently require or anticipate needing in the future. Use the resources presented here to do your research, and of course, let us know if we can help.
Import, Export, Report: Increase Your Data Capture Rate
August 22, 2024
The heart of digital transformation is data capture coupled with reducing paper records. The requirement to transform digital documents between systems is ideally bypassed by keeping all functions contained in one system. When this is not an option, such as when recording bench observations and noting when supplies are low, then a seamless transfer of information between systems needs to be enabled within the laboratory workflow.
LabTwin is the solution for digital capture of laboratory bench information. LabTwin has out-of-the-box (OOTB) options for importing spreadsheets and other documentation for ease of transfer into the system. Additionally, LabTwin has OOTB options for exporting created tables, as well as a report formatting option when information needs to be distributed.
Integrating a digital, voice-activated recording tool at the lab bench is seamless with the importing and exporting abilities of LabTwin.
Import
Save time converting your protocols into discrete steps with LabTwin. Digesting protocols and procedures are an existing and continually improving feature of the LabTwin system. Most protocols are optimized for printed clarity when developed internally. An additional optimization is undertaken during the ingestion process to optimize the discrete steps verbally for use with the LabTwin AI pronunciation.
Importing a protocol into LabTwin includes automatic versioning to track the most current documents and what protocols have been improved. For situations where some team members build protocols and others implement the protocols, LabTwin uses a back-end team-based organization for promoting a protocol to the collective library. These improved and updated files are then made available to others on the team, and if protocols need to be transferred between the teams, LabTwin has an export function, discussed in the next section.
Export
After capturing an entire suite of data, LabTwin has multiple options for exporting it. In another blog post, we covered system integrations via API. There are three workflows for exporting LabTwin data: exporting generated tables, exporting the supply tracking function, and creating Zip files of experiment notes.
Natively, LabTwin allows the export of generated tables into CSV and XLSX formats.
When performing an inventory function for receiving samples or for performing a chemical inventory, the ease of generating a table with LabTwin reduces the overall time in two ways. First, unstructured data can be captured into a table via audio input with all the advantages of hands-free data entry. Second, the ease of exporting voice-generated data into an Excel sheet is another time-saving and paper-reducing advantage.
The second export function in LabTwin exports the tracking information for supplies. When managing your lab and benchtop supplies, the inventory tagged as Needed, Purchased, or Received is captured. This information is exportable in both CSV and XLSX formats. Consider the reduction in lab clutter and memorization when an inventory list can remain fully digital. This portability makes a lab supplies errand to the stock room more efficient.
The third export function produces a Zip file of the notes attached to an experiment. This exported information includes detailed information about the note’s creation (time, date, database key) as well as identifying information for the securely stored audio file that generated the note. Though it is unlikely that only the notes would need to be exported, this function allows for the metadata to be studied and other analyses to be performed on a subset of information otherwise dispersed throughout reports. This brings us to our next topic…
Report
LabTwin allows its users to build and preview any report that results from a completed protocol. There is no need to spend time configuring within a dedicated report-building software. LabTwin exports its reports in PDF and docx formats as well as via a web link. There is precise control over what information is included that may be ancillary to the protocol. This additional information includes what consumables were used in executing the protocol, which all become a part of the exported reports. If additional tables were generated, they can also be added to the builder.
Standardization is achieved with a front-end manipulation of reports by exporting the relevant info. This allows for the active embedding of captured photos and notes. Less time spent messing around with a phone or no time spent filling out forms to get cameras or returning approved devices to storage when working in secure environments. LabTwin exports the created report to a dedicated system folder. The contents of the folder can then be transferred to and stored in other data systems.
The use of a native reporting format saves time for documenting repetitive tasks. The standardization of outputs allows for ease of digestion by other data streams to capture bench-top variance and get ahead of operational pitfalls. Capturing a note about a proposed procedure change in real time means nothing is missed during creation or execution of a protocol.
Reducing the barriers to digital recording and digital reporting significantly increases the data capture rate of any lab looking to gain insights into their benchtop science.
What challenges do your lab staff face with respect to consistent reporting and centralizing data repositories?