L7 | CHATS
case study
Supporting Alpine Bio in Their Mission to Transform Plants into the World’s Most Regenerative Ingredient Factories
by Brigitte Ganter, Ph.D. | posted on July 31, 2024
Figure 1: High-level description of Alpine Bio’s approach to using plants as highly efficient protein production factories.
Implementing an efficient, sustainable, and scalable process that supports the tracking of thousands of plants during their growth stages, as well as tracking associated seeds, extracted material, and molecular constructs, is of critical importance. Even more so when 25 people, split across five different teams and two sites are involved in collecting, summarizing, and researching all the data. While the data volume is not necessarily the challenge, maintaining the complex connectivity between the data points is. The Unified Platform L7|ESP®, with its Workflow Orchestration and Data Contextualization, was chosen as the central data platform to accommodate the data collection and connectivity requirements. L7|ESP provides real-time updates with all the results being linked back to the source plants so that team members know in “real time” which lineage to retain or discard for future experiments to deliver an optimized product. Lastly, L7|ESP provides calculations to set up molecular and protein analysis experiments.
L7|ESP Helps Achieve Research Goals and Addresses Data Tracking and Linking Challenges
| Challenges | L7|ESP Provides the Solution |
| Cumbersome large Google sheets to track and aggregate data, complicating syncing data across all Master Data sheets | ● Collects, tracks, manages, and stores all samples, plants, lineages, experiments, data, and meta information across the entire organization within one platform o Removes the requirement of manual sample tracking o Streamlines data access for anyone at the organization ● Tracks sample location via the fully integrated Container application ● Creates transparency across research groups which results in enhanced, company-wide research efficiency ● Enforces consistency for the lab users ● Tracks the well-being of a plant |
| Non-standardized data entry with data being stored in too many different places | ● Receives data once and links all entities to experiment information, location data, user (i.e., researcher) information, and more ● Simplifies the data ingestion process ● Updates information in real-time ● Provides consistent data formats ● Prevents individuals from accidentally changing column headers and introducing typos/errors ● Allows users to extend and design their own data collection applets and reports |
| Manual sample tracking and loss of samples | ● Automates sample registration, tracking, and information gathering o Prevents sample loss o Standardizes data entry which in turn reduces errors through consistent naming schemas ● Integrates with label printing tools o Matches read information across the entire database and populates fields accordingly o Custom workflow includes buttons for QR code generation, barcode printing, and for sample/process tracking o Removes manual label writing and reduces time and errors ● Supports easy upload of sample data and their information and dragging them into worksheets ● Applies logic to evaluate plants and understand when plants are ready for the next set of experiment(s) ● Ensures traceability and sample/data provenance ● Provides an audit trail for each entity, whether a seed, a plant, or a lineage, including their specific locations o Tracks experimental details, who performed the experiment, and when |
| Tracking and collecting all samples at scale
| ● Flexible and fully featured LIMS software that captures all process information o Associates all sample information with the workflow which is associated with the plant meta data or tags o Tracks seed entities, seed pods, seed/plant location, and seed/plant harvest status ● Takes advantage of integrated Inventory and Location applet o Improves coordination between teams, sample tracking, and sample hand-off ● Simplifies internal workflows ● Informs all teams of plant status and sampling |
At Alpine Bio, embracing innovation is essential for our journey. L7 Informatics’ highly flexible Unified Platform L7|ESP revolutionizes how we track plants, samples, and lineages, empowering our R&D endeavors with a consistent process that has already resulted in a 50% increase in efficiency. We’re excited to continue our partnership, leveraging L7 Informatics to modernize our digital infrastructure and shape the future of our industry.