Thermo Fisher Scientific Wins Microsoft Life Sciences Innovation Award for Third Consecutive Year

This award recognizes companies for their innovative use of Microsoft-based solutions. Microsoft selected Thermo Fisher and Emory University, part of the Atlantic Clinical and Translational Science Institute (ACTSI), as winner of this award for their use of Thermo Scientific Nautilus LIMS (laboratory information management system) to advance information exchange in the clinical and translational science environment across a diverse set of laboratories.

The ACTSI is focused on accelerating the translation of laboratory discoveries into healthcare innovations for patients and plays an important role in North American health research by supporting investigators across Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), Grady Hospital, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech). A key initiative for ACTSI is the selection and deployment of LIMS across the consortium to support a “virtual bio-repository” environment. The ACTSI implemented Nautilus LIMS™ at Emory University as part of an enterprise biospecimen management system rollout to enhance workflow, foster collaboration and effectively manage samples. With the need to connect many laboratories and external institutions with its enterprise LIMS, Emory achieved a level of standardization with Nautilus that is replicable across configurations and gave Emory and ACTSI an informatics solution that will be an important component of their translational science informatics infrastructure.

The award, announced at the Drug Information Association’s (DIA) 46th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., was presented to Thermo Fisher Scientific and Emory University to acknowledge the use of Microsoft technology to enable seamless communication and collaboration between Emory and external consortia, advancing scientific discoveries. The LIMS is an important component of an overall architecture supporting translational science across Emory and the ACTSI.

“Thermo Fisher and Emory have been selected for this prestigious award for using Microsoft technology to facilitate collaboration and improve workflow across a number of laboratories,” said Michael Naimoli, director of life sciences industry solutions, Microsoft. “The Emory/ACTSI implementation takes advantage of Thermo Scientific WebAccess deployed on Microsoft technologies to deliver rich client functionality via a web browser to both internal and external users. In addition, the Study Design Module (SDM) created by Thermo Fisher and Emory using Microsoft tools provides an easy to use graphical user interface for study design, which allows the ACTSI to design workflows more quickly.”

The ACTSI is one of 46 medical research institutes working in a consortium funded through the CTSA (Clinical and Translational Science Awards) to enhance translational research in the United States. The implementation of the Nautilus LIMS solution will enable consistent terminology usage and information model mapping across different laboratories, allowing integration with upstream clinical study systems and downstream laboratory analysis processes. The solution has resulted in significant cost savings due to reduced maintenance needs and simpler integration, as well as improving efficiency and data quality. Time savings have also been generated as deployment of a standard base configuration with optional additional lab specific configuration minimizes deployment time for initial lab implementations and use of the new SDM extension will reduce the configuration time for new study protocols by as much as 50 percent, providing more efficient management and tracking of mid-study modifications. In addition, the audit and traceability features of Nautilus ensure regulatory compliance throughout the management of research specimens. The ACTSI Clinical Interaction Network Nautilus implementation currently supports 117 study investigators/coordinators conducting 47 research studies with more than 37,000 original samples and more than 102,000 aliquots.

The ACTSI is supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Award program, National Institutes of Health, National Center for Research Resources.

Dave Champagne, vice president and general manager, Informatics, Thermo Fisher Scientific, comments: “We are delighted that our work as a leading provider of informatics solutions to the life science industry has been recognized with this award for the third consecutive year. Our enterprise LIMS solution, which has been implemented at Emory University, makes the industry’s goal of advancing scientific discoveries amongst a community of institutions a reality.”