PAPERLESS LAB ACADEMY 2018 – A CONFIRMED SUCCESS

A stunning location overlooking the water and the Alps, on Maggiore Lake: this is where the sixth edition of Paperless Lab Academy, that took place the last 20th and 21st March, recently ended with success.

After 6 years, the event is still considered to be the best learning platform for all organizations involved in running, consolidating, integrating and simplifying laboratory data management processes.

The central theme of this edition? “Empower your eData lifecycle”, leveraging on four key macro areas: eConnect, eManage, eDecide, eArchive.

A long and relevant list of partners chose Paperless Lab Academy 2018 as a stage to reach their audience and to present the latest tools and methodologies in the market.

Dexstr and Soft&Labs, Lonza and Thermo Fisher Scientific attended as premium sponsors

– through workshops and 1to1 sessions at their booth, they presented the latest innovations and systems developed by their teams.

Dexstr introduced Inquiro, the first system that combines automatic metadata generation and intelligent annotation with
scientific search for R&D environments, in order to automatically capture unstructured data, from any source, in any format. Dexstr represents a new wave of
suppliers that have recently joined the laboratory informatics market with new technologies and innovative solutions.

Lonza focused on the ability to capture data to make better, more efficient
decisions, discussing the value of interfacing, the technical aspects of having systems exchange data and the validation of interfaces. Lonza confirms its unique portfolio of solutions in the microbiology environment.

In their workshop, Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced a platform that enables the delivery of application-specific modules, which contain industry-standard features and capabilities, so that businesses can select the functionalities they need.

The large combination of solutions provided by Thermo, including the recent acquisition of Core Informatics, enables customers to implement a solution for the entire value chain, from R&D to QA/QC.

Worth mentioning also all the other sponsors, that contributed to making the event a success.

GOLD: Agilab, Agilent, Waters, Biovia, Adiuto, Labware, PerkinElmer, CDDVault
SPONSORS: Stratec, ICSA, LabGuru, Optibrium, Vivenics, Global Value Web, Wega, ACD LAbs, ZIFO, Accenture, AdeoData, Osthus, OpenCo, Caliber

Sponsors, yes, but not only: speakers and presenters also joined the event and brought their added value through presentations in plenary sessions.

Accenture, key-note speaker of the first day with an interesting presentation about Blockchain and its usage in scientific data management. This disruptive technology which is already implemented in other markets may become a new era of IT solutions for scientific data management. After the initial implementation in the financial market, the food industry has started introducing the blockchain concept to secure the full traceability of goods. Part of the information that can be secured is related to the quality control activities performed throughout the supply chain. Today, we see this technology as a long-term future implementation. The reality may be largely different and impact the laboratories much sooner, as we have learnt for other technologies

Sanofi showed how to manage unstructured big data for document search and retrieval. The era of big data has started a while ago. Research projects are generating an immense amount of data, thanks to technologies that were cutting-edge few years ago and are now in th hands of thousands of researchrs. The result is a huge amount of unstructured data that needs to be analysed, interpreted and used to discover new drgus; Hovione, who has presented how the quality control labs become part of the production chain and generate value for the company by ensuring high product quality the Dutch Data Protection Authority, represented by Sophie Van Meulen, who introduced the impact of the new GDPR for science. The story was very personal, demonstrating how any of us can be impacted by the use and sharing of personal information, particularly when they are related to our health.

A large number of companies with large reputation in the industry decided to share their innovations with the attendees: lab managers, IT specialists and policy makers from all over Europe, US and India who came to the event saw PLA as eye opener in the field of lab automation and have now concrete tools to work better and faster in the organization.

The number of registrations to the event is increasing year over year, confirming that PLA is the right place to learn how to introduce paperless processes in the laboratories, share ideas with peers, experts and providers. A large number of new visitors confirm that there is large interest in the market for this event.

PLA2018 confirms that the original strategy based on three pillars is the most successful: high-level content agenda, hosted workshops and free entrance for visitors are allowing PLA to be the number one event in Europe for laboratory automation and information management.

So now, in the wake of this recent success, we’ll just have to wait and get to know all the details regarding the next edition – Paperless Lab Academy 2019! In the meantime, the organization is planning several digital activities, monthly newsletters and webinar series, to maintain the momentum and keep facilitating food for thoughts for your paperless lab projects.