LabBase: managing lab data in a large-scale genome-mapping project

The Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research is engaged in several high-throughput genome-mapping projects, including physical mapping of the human genome and genetic-linkage mapping of the mouse genome. The scale and complexity of the laboratory workflows for these projects make a laboratory information system a necessity. For example, the human physical mapping project has performed over 1.2 million experimental steps to date, many of which involve numerous biochemical assays. The result is a physical map containing over 13 thousand sequence-tagged-site markers, with a near-term goal of 15 thousand markers. These markers will likely be used as a starting point for producing a higher resolution map, which in turn will provide the raw material for sequencing the human genome. LabBase is a database management system (DBMS) tailored to the needs of laboratory information systems that support such projects. It is designed to make it easy to keep track of laboratory samples, the experimental steps performed on them, and the results of these experiments. LabBase is functionally specialised because it provides special support for the requirements of managing laboratory data over and above what would be provided by a generic, off-the-shelf DBMS