Our previous blog post outlined five crucial criteria that a robust lab assay data management system should have to foster scientific discoveries. Building on that, we now dive into the “how” aspect, presenting a compelling real-life story of one of our customers who achieved this by implementing a powerful, new screening technology platform through successful collaboration with Discngine.

The need for legacy software replacement at Bayer CropScience

Scientists from the Bayer CropScience site in Lyon aim to identify new small molecules with novel modes of action employing a newly implemented, cutting-edge, and cellular-based approach #CropKey. Their data management process plays a crucial role in facilitating their endeavors.

However, they were facing a clear challenge: their screening IT lab infrastructure and data management tools available internally were siloed and poorly flexible, impairing scientists' efficiency. The legacy application did not communicate with other software, resulting in the need for constant manual troubleshooting. This process was time-consuming, cumbersome, and not the best use of their time. In addition, they lacked a fully integrated solution that, combined with the data management and result acquisition aspects, would ensure a streamlined experience design and platform control from assay plate handling to global screening activities.

To address this issue, Discngine collaborated with lab scientists and IT specialists at Bayer CropScience to create a novel and adapted solution with a customized, all-in-one innovative digital platform for screening purposes called Discngine Assay. This platform now seamlessly integrates with their robotic tools and covers the entire spectrum of screening activities ranging from assay development to data analysis and decision-making.

Discover how Discngine’s software solution successfully transformed Bayer’s lab infrastructure and enhanced data-driven compound discovery by reading our short interview with Aurélia Vernay, Lydie Bouquet-Sita and Matthieu Bouillé, members of Bayer CropScience in Lyon!

Could you summarize the key criteria of the solution you were looking for?

When looking for a new solution to be integrated into our lab, one key capability we thought about was flexibility. Given our rapidly evolving research needs and constant exploration of novel technologies/projects, we needed a tool that could adapt to our different use cases and different microscopic-based screening platforms (e.g.: Assay development for new pathogens).

Another important feature was speed (time response). While our local solutions were relatively fast, being a newly implemented screening platform, we struggled with handling large volumes of data. Thus, we aimed to maintain the same pace while increasing our data capacity to accelerate our work.

Since cloud-native solutions are mandatory at our company, we were looking for a new web-based application that could maintain the same reactivity as our former local solutions.  Therefore, the provider would need to possess the staff and knowledge to host and maintain solutions in the cloud.

Finally, the user-friendly interface was highly desirable. We wanted something efficient yet intuitive, allowing our lab experts to feel fully comfortable with the tool.

With these requirements in mind, including integrability in the first place, we began exploring commercially available solutions. However, none of them offered the desired level of extensibility, which means that we would need to internally develop additional tools from scratch. That would take us much more time and resources than planned.

That’s why the ability to tailor existing tools to fit our lab environment became another decisive criterion, along with integrability. Both were precisely found in Discngine Assay. 

The implementation of Discngine Assay and its impact

How does the Discngine Assay solution fit your lab workflows?

Discngine Assay software solution has built-in features for handling sample preparation, assay analysis, and data warehousing, which already fulfilled most of the screening activities. Regarding the key criteria concerning the platform architecture, all of them, especially the deciding ones - integrability and flexibility - were satisfying. We connected Discngine Assay to our equipment and started carefully configuring parameters and making specific adjustments to our use case. Thanks to that, we managed to fully integrate the solution into our lab IT ecosystem.

Today, we use Discngine Assay daily from the beginning of our screening campaign till the very end. The solution covers our screening activities from A to Z:

• The first step of a screening campaign is the management of our compounds. Consequently, we used one part of the Discngine Assay to integrate complex data from our compound and logistic database. It generated simplified visual files and worklists with plate information for our screening robot. This capability was tailored specifically for our environment.

• From this Experimental design’s first step, Discngine’s solution directly communicates with the different robots of the screening platforms by transferring dedicated relevant & easily readable files. Such operation ensures the control of the platform and the launch of our compound plate preparation.

• Afterwards, once our screening data have been generated from our compound plates, thanks to the traceability of each of those plates, Discngine Assay processes them and performs statistical analysis with powerful data visualization features. This step is critical for the expert permitting to statistically validate the run with relevant negative & positive control.

• As a last step, while using the same interface, the solution ensures compound efficacy calculation and ensures the transfer of those data. Those results are stored in Discngine Warehouse while being published into the dedicated Bayer internal database.

Consequently, Discngine’s solution follows our lab workflows at every step. It carries all the information that allows us to combine the initial compound data with results coming from lab assays, such as compound efficiency.

What is the impact of the solution developed by Discngine on your lab activities?

Discngine Assay allowed us to overcome the challenges we faced with the outdated system, which caused scattered work, manual errors, and time-consuming troubleshooting. The new solution has brought us more traceability and flexibility for our assays.

Our efficiency has also improved drastically since the implementation. We have been able to automate routine-based protocols to speed up the review of the data, which was not set up before from a unique streamlined cloud-based solution including capture and statistical analysis of our data. The seamless workflow and integrations have successfully increased our data capacity, meeting one of the key requirements. The time saved in this process allows us to focus more on setting up new protocols and/or technologies, ideating, and pushing further the frontiers of our innovation and identifying new molecules controlling our fungal models.

Additionally, we now have increased traceability in our data as well as confidence in the statistical robustness of our assay design. By utilizing a single tool, we can track all data throughout the entire screening cycle, resulting in a more than 90% reduction in errors. Also, the quality of our data significantly improved due to the statistical data visualization, as well as the user-friendly and intuitive interface. Everything is designed with simplicity in mind, with an appealing visual aspect and a variety of colors. For example, Manual QC validation is no longer necessary, as we have a quick and direct view of the results and curves.

From this first successful collaboration, we can see the positive impact on our daily work in regard to the data management and data analysis of our screening activities. We have no doubt that Discngine’s solution could have other applications with our companies and have additional positive impacts on other activities.

Collaboration with Discngine  

On what grounds did you choose Discngine?

Prior to deciding, we did a Proof of Concept (POC) to gain insights into how Discngine works and determine how we could implement a solution based on the identified use cases. The results of the POC were highly positive, especially from the user’s perspective.

One of the key arguments for choosing Discngine Assay was its flexibility. Our previous solution lacked the ability to adapt to our various use cases and potentially different platforms. Hence, with Discngine, we finally found what had been missing for a long time.

In addition to the technical requirements, we were particularly impressed by the expertise of the Discngine team. Their members possess dual skills in both IT and life science. Having a developer that understands both sides of the world (e.g., terms like concentration/dilutions/biological organisms), especially for the screening platform for drug discovery, enabled a mutual understanding of our needs, with immediate compliance and feedback. Afterwards, it was very simple and quick to proceed with the implementation, and it confirmed our excellent choice. The Discngine team was very professional, very reactive and proactive, with proposals always of high added value to our needs.

What is your experience with the Discngine team, and how would you describe the collaboration?

Seamless communication: The collaboration has been incredibly smooth and insightful, with a lot of compliance right from the beginning. We truly feel like one team as Discngine works diligently to transform our desires into reality.
It was very helpful for us to build the system together. Their suggestions improved the process of our assay data management. Discngine follows agile approaches, so we engaged in regular exchanges to discuss project progress and give feedback, and this greatly contributed to the platform development and interface design.

Support: A vital aspect of our collaboration with Discngine has been continuous support since day one. The initial Bayer team involved in the project received comprehensive training on the tool, including updates on the development of new features. Discngine also provided clear and user-friendly documentation and training materials to facilitate the onboarding of new users. Ultimately, since the platform is intuitive enough, it doesn’t take much time for users to become familiar with it.

Reactivity: The team is very reactive when it comes to addressing technical issues and meeting our demands. We have a dedicated channel through which we report our concerns, and the response time is impressively quick, usually within 30 minutes. In case of emergencies, we also have a more direct means of reaching out.

What are the future directions for the Discngine solution? Where can it expand? 

Today, we use Discngine Assay for one robotic platform in one lab, and the future vision is to propagate and connect it to more instruments. We aim to expand the platform to every cellular-based assay platform at the Bayer CropScience research center. The idea is to connect it to three different platforms, including different device types, from microscopy to classical optical density measurement with Discngine Assay. We trust we can expand its usage in other lab departments and projects and onboard more users on various sites.

Summary

Working with a siloed solution that requires manual work and is prone to errors impedes the efficiency of many assay campaigns, thereby hindering research and development. Thanks to the joint Discngine and Bayer effort, lab scientists now have an efficient, automated, and tailor-made comprehensive tool that is seamlessly integrated into Bayer’s lab ecosystem. As a result, they managed to increase the efficiency successfully and can now concentrate on data-driven analysis and new molecule discovery.

Big thank you to our interviewees for giving first-hand insights and sharing the story:

Aurélia Vernay, Lab leader in Early Phase Research

Aurélia is currently leading the Biological Hit Identification Laboratory of Disease Control research center in Lyon, France. We are aiming, thanks to an innovative cellular-based approach to identify novel small molecules with novel modes of action. Our data management process is key to supporting our activity.

Lydie Bouquet-Sita, Laboratory scientist

Lydie is a biologist responsible for finding new chemicals or natural compounds to avoid fungus development and protect plants from disease. She has experience in the assessment of disease development, greenhouse plants, fungus, training new people and beginners in microscopy and setting up robotic platforms and new tools for data analysis.

Matthieu Bouillé, IT project manager

Matthieu is an IT R&D product platform specialist at Bayer CropScience Lyon. His role consists of supporting scientists in maintaining and deploying applications that will enable them to accelerate and ease their processes and daily tasks. He is also working as a coordinator for IT infrastructure.