Integrating the Discovery Laboratory
Live Q&A session will immediately follow
One of the greatest challenges facing research operations is the consolidation of information from the disparate information silos that have propagated in the last decade. Not only are scientists faced with having to access multiple systems on a daily basis, the facts these systems contain are often not consolidated, making it difficult to create new knowledge on compounds and materials. Coming to the market only recently, new tools are available to research organization to build bridges between information islands and to create an integrated research knowledge base. Our expert panel will discuss how these technologies are being used and best practices for deployment.

Discussion Topics/Panelists:
Simplifying the Scientist’s Experience in Drug Discovery Informatics
Craig Tulig
Associate Director
Millennium Pharmaceuticals




Drug Discovery is a complex, multifaceted problem and the informatics systems deployed to support Discovery have to contend with this complexity at both the point solution level and more broadly as one looks across the many Discovery systems in use. This complexity can be reduced from the scientific end-user perspective by centralizing related tools and data and can also be reduced from the informatics perspective by making appropriate enterprise architecture decisions. This talk will cover example centralization points in the Millennium Drug Discovery platform and touch on the architectural choices made to achieve them.

Craig has been with Millennium for seven years and has run a number of informatics projects for Millennium’s Drug Discovery departments. These include Millennium’s Decision Support system for Drug Discovery, and more recently, Millennium’s Chemistry eNotebook initiatives. Prior to Millennium, Craig worked at Genome Therapeutics where he was responsible for the company’s technology platform to support research in Human Genetics. HE holds engineering degrees from Boston University and Syracuse University.

Better Scientific Decision Support and Project Management though a Collaborative, "Information-centric" Tool
Daniel Weaver, Ph.D.
Senior Manager of Scientific Systems
Array Biopharmaceuticals




Array is co-developing a collaborative decision support and project management environment with General Dynamics VIZ that integrates all the hard data and human intuition into one interface. Through this approach, project plans, work progress and scientific results are updated and disseminated automatically, and are presented in an interface that permits and encourages user annotation. As a result, all relevant data is at hand for the scientists assessing a project situation and making well-informed decisions. This talk will describe why a different approach to scientific decision support is warranted and will assert that a collaborative, "information-centric" environment will drive better project results by drawing on examples from other industries. I will present a case study of our progress and results, and will highlight the architectural consideration, cultural issues and long-term prospectus of this new approach to developing therapeutics.

Daniel Weaver is Senior Manager of Scientific Computing at Array Biopharma, where he is responsible for deploying scientific software solutions to Array’s scientists. He was previously a Lead Scientist and Project Manager at Genomica, where he led the gene expression analysis project and human genetic analysis software development. Daniel graduated with a degree in Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University in 1991. He received his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology and Genetics in 1998 from the University of Colorado. Daniel joined Genomica after performing postdoctoral research with Gary Stormo, Ph.D., investigating mathematical modeling techniques for gene expression network analysis.

Moderator:
Michael H. Elliott
President
Atrium Research




Michael H. Elliott is the founder of Atrium Research and a recognized expert in the field of laboratory informatics. He founded the company in 2003 with a mission to provide in-depth and un-biased information on informatics markets, technologies, products and suppliers. He began his 24+ year technology career began as a clinical research chemist at the Indiana University Medical Center. In 1983, he joined Perkin-Elmer, a large analytical instrument and LIMS company (now developed by ABI), as a laboratory information and automation technical consultant. His career progressed into positions that included LIMS sales, IT project manager, director of U.S. operations, vice president of worldwide marketing and product management, and division vice president and general manager. Later, he joined Scientific Software (now part of Agilent Technologies), a large supplier of scientific content management and laboratory automation software, as senior vice president responsible for worldwide operations. He has written landmark research studies on the ELN and scientific data management markets and is routinely quoted for his expertise in major publications. He has presented at conferences, events and seminars in over 20 countries and has multiple articles published on laboratory informatics. Mike also serves on the editorial board of Scientific Computing magazine.