New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
Efficiency at Scale: Innovations in Sample Management (Sponsored by Scigilian)
In this special episode, Scigilian Vice President, Product and Strategy Chatura Jayakody, M.B.A., and Merck Director, Discovery Sample Management Janet Diratsouian, M.S., join Hannah for a discussion on how Scigilian's compound management software has helped to improve sample management processes at Merck. Catch Scigilian and their software on display at the upcoming SLAS 2023 Americas Sample Management Symposium!
Key Learning Points:
- How large companies coordinate sample management at scale
- Ways to collaborate in a competitive market
- How artificial intelligence will influence sample management technology
- The future outlook on sample management
About Scigilian:
Scigilian is a leading life science solutions provider specializing in solutions that address the collaboration challenges of a distributed lab research environment. Scigilian enables life science organizations to accelerate their discovery efforts and optimize their lab operations by providing solutions that orchestrate and streamline their internal and external workflows. From managing sample inventory to performing sample logistics, scheduling assays to analyzing and viewing results, Scigilian's Discovery Platform’s powerful life science solutions are carefully designed to meet the software technology needs of pharmaceutical, biotech and scientific research organizations of today and tomorrow.
Visit https://scigilian.com/ to learn more.
Transcript available on Buzzsprout
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About SLAS
SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.
Upcoming SLAS Events:
SLAS2025 International Conference and Exhibition
- January 25-29, 2025
- San Diego, CA, USA
SLAS Europe 2025 Conference and Exhibition
- 20-22 May 2025
- Hamburg, Germany
Hannah Rosen:
Hello everyone and welcome to new matter at the Slas podcast where we interview Life science luminaries. I'm your host Hannah Rosen and today on the podcast we have Chatura Jayakody from Scigilian and Janet Diratsouian from Merck, and Scigilian is our premier sponsor for the SLAS Sample Management Symposium this year, and Chatura and Janet are here to discuss how Scigilian's compound management software has helped to improve sample management processes at Merck. So, welcome to the podcast, both of you.
Janet Diratsouian:
Thank you, thank you very much Hannah.
Chatura Jayakody:
Thank you, glad to be here.
Hannah Rosen:
We're happy to have you. So to start off with, I would love it if each of you could just take a few moments and talk to us about your professional background and your areas of expertise.
Janet Diratsouian:
Do you want me to start first?
Chatura Jayakody:
Yeah, why don't you?
Janet Diratsouian:
Ok, yeah. So, I've been out working within the compound management area for quite a number of years. So, I worked for over 20 years for Hoffman-La Roche in Nutley, NJ, I was heading the compound management group there. And for over 10 years now, I've been working with Merck within the compound management group. I do have my main responsibilities within the Merck organization is the analytical chemistry lab that we have here in Rahway in New Jersey, where we are headquartered at the moment. And we have an analytical chemistry lab where we make sure that the compounds that we’re dispensing to specific tasks, may it be supporting the RFP of specific projects or supporting high service screening groups here within the organization that we are dispensing compounds that are high quality so that they're not following up any garbage in, garbage out. So, the quality of the compounds, we make sure that is there before we dispense them. All the other responsibilities that I have is the, what we call within the work organization, the compounds submission lineups, which are sitting at each research site within the work organization.
So, there are smaller labs, we have a fairly large lab here in Rahway, NJ, but the compound submission labs are smaller. And they do handle compounds actually to support the ROP of each project that is being run at each research site. So that is part of my responsibilities as well. I get also involved in compliance aspects of handling controlled substances are also put in compound handling, etc etc. So, there are a number of things that I'm involved in, and we have looked at actually ordering software packages quite a number of years ago, and Scigilian was one of the software packages that we looked at, and had very intense conversations with Jerry from Scigilian. Chatura was not at that point with Scigilian yet, but again, that's the way we get started, our discussions with Scigilian Request at that point.
Chatura Jayakody:
Thanks, Janet. Hi, I'm Chatura Jayakody, I'm the vice president of product and business strategy at Scigilian. I've been with the company for about a year, just over a year now, but prior to joining Scigilian I was actually a customer of Scigilian for almost 7 years and I've used a number of our products including the one Janet will probably talk about today, which is the Request Platform, I've used Analyze, Visualize, and their Store module in the past. Prior to Scigilian I worked in compound management as well as asset development for almost 12 years, and I started my career at UNC Chapel Hill and then moved to biotech companies, Warp Drive Bio, and the last one was Accent Therapeutics, where I was in charge of lab operations, which meant I had to take care of sample management and also helped assay development teams. And my interaction with Scigilian came because I had to also help with the informatic solutions. We had the data analysis, sample management or even the visualization and that's how I got to know the team here. And I was glad, very happy to join them last year and help with product and business strategy.
Janet Diratsouian:
So that's interesting Chatura. So, your background sounds like as if it's biology. My background is chemistry.
Chatura Jayakody:
Yeah, my background is actually biochemistry, so started running assays and at UNC I was in Bill Jansen's lab and I jumped into sample management by happenstance and just kept doing it. Obviously, I had to still do my actual job of running assays and such, but then I just kind of gravitated towards the sample management space. Lot of cool robots, right? Who wouldn't?
Janet Diratsouian:
As long as you have the money Chatura, there are tons of robots.
Hannah Rosen:
Oh, that's fantastic. So, I would love to talk a little bit, Janet, you know, if you can tell us, obviously Merck is a huge, huge company organization and so I imagine that the challenges you deal with for compound management are at a scale that is probably unlike what a lot of other, you know, organizations or companies are dealing with. So, can you talk to us a little bit about, you know, how is compound management run at Merck? You know, do you have different campuses that are responsible for different types of assays and compounds? And then how does that work when you're coordinating different types of tests that require all these different compounds?
Janet Diratsouian:
As I was mentioning earlier, so the remote sites, I refer to them as remotes, all sites, remote compound submission labs basically support each research site in itself, so the compounds, really the way I look at the compound submission labs is that they're sitting between the chemistry and the biology labs. So, the chemist synthesizes the compounds, they would submit the compound to the compound submission lab. The compound submission lab uses a software package, a LIMs package, to process the compound. Basically, weighs out the compound, solubilizes the compound, the solid samples in general, and dispenses it in a specific format that the biologist needs at that site where they're running the primary assay. So, then the compounds are dispensed to the biology lab and the biologist does what he or she is supposed to do, right, run the assay.
And whatever else compounds are left over, they usually, within the compound submission labs, they also stem out an aliquot for our main site here, the core area in Rahway, New Jersey, where we have the larger lab and the compounds, usually whatever is solid sample leftover and an aliquot of the stock solution usually is sent from the compounds to which the lab the remote site, compound submission lab, to the Rahway site so that we have the large collection sitting here in Rahway. It contains solid samples, it also contains solution samples as well. The compound solution labs themselves at each remote site, they do not store any compounds, so it's almost like a through way, right? So, you are putting the compounds in their process, they're stamped out, they continue going to either the biologist or the Rahway lab here. So, we're using Scigilian Request actually for the end users to be going in and requesting compounds from Rahway for any follow up assays. So, the information about sample availability is inside your Request and any researcher can go into scheduling Request, punching the internal identifiers and pull the information available inside Scigilian Request and place the orders according to what they need. Did I answer your question?
Hannah Rosen:
Yes, yes. So, what made you guys, you know, come to the decision that you needed some sort of compound management software like what you're using with the Request through Scigilian.
Janet Diratsouian:
We did have many years ago and don't quote me on the numbers, but that must have been seven or eight years since we're subscribing to Scigilian’s Request software. We had an old ordering software package that we're using and it was coming to an end of its life cycle and it was an in-house developed software package and it was just not sustainable any longer. You know, we did go out to see what software companies were out there and Scigilian was, a few that are still out there as ordering up the software packages applications. And uh, we did have a number of our chemistry colleagues, biology colleagues as well attending, don't quote me on the number, 2-3 days sessions with different vendors coming in and showing us their software packages. And it was a decision that was made internally, including the biologist, the chemist and the compound management guys who were involved in this whole process. To make a decision and at the end of the day, Scigilian was the software package that we want.
Hannah Rosen:
Did you have anything to add Chatura?
Chatura Jayakody:
No, this was definitely before my time. It's funny that you're listening to the story of Scigilian, Jean, Jerry, and Clyde, and pretty much most of the developers were actually Merck employees up in Montreal. So, they worked for Merck Frost. When that site shut down, they went and rewrote the software and I'm glad it found its home again at Mark as well. So, Request was the first thing that they kind of spun out as soon as they started the company, yeah.
Hannah Rosen:
So Janet, in your time since you've started at Merck. How have you seen the challenges in dealing with compound management kind of changing over your tenure there?
Janet Diratsouian:
Yeah. So, I think in the last few years, what we're seeing is different modalities, not only small molecules that we have dealt with in the past. And currently we're, you know, looking at, again, and that's not just at work, but within the industry in general, right, have different modalities coming in. For risk, some of them are sort of challenging because we have to learn and understand the, you know, peptides, for example macrocyclic peptides, NTPS 8's PDCS, etcetera, etcetera. So, we need to understand those types of modalities a little bit better understand what storage conditions they need to be kept at, how to dispense them and other considerations such as can they be used and worked on the same insurance as we are doing with the small molecules.
So, there are a number of different types of considerations that we have to put in here as we're setting up all these new modality handling, if you will. So, the other area that we are sort of in the last few months here or so, biologics is another area that a lot of companies are getting into, right, so that's another area that is going to have to, at least for us, we have not handled biologics in a way that we're handling small molecules in the central area. So, I think that's something else that we are actively looking at to see how we can work with biologics using the current set of standards and SOP's that we have set up for small molecules. So, I think there was a lot more to come. And stay tuned so, there will be more.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah. What, you know, with a lot of these challenges that you're facing, you know, are there any particular solutions that you've found that have really kind of helped guide you along this path?
Janet Diratsouian:
So, I feel like we're still in the beginning stages and we have been discussing, one good example is we are, you know, compound management is precompetitive, right. There are some companies that are have been working on biologics, all four that we are aware of. So, we do discuss those situations, biologics is a good example. There are companies like Genentech, Abbvie, and other large companies that have worked within biologics and have centralized compound handling. So, we do have again good examples, sample management meeting in Washington, we get together and discuss and try to learn from each other with these different types of modalities that are there, and obviously we have a lot of experiences, small molecules, so we are very open as to how we are handling them. So that other colleagues can understand and take all of those points into consideration. Yeah, it's all precompetitive, right, we're not talking about anything that is specific to a specific company.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's nice. And that helps because I'm sure it makes it a lot, people are a lot more open to share their lessons learned and and knowledge within that precompetitive space.
Janet Diratsouian:
Absolutely. Absolutely yes.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, that's great. So, what is day-to-day compounded sample management like at Merck, you know, for maybe some people who are listening, who are at a smaller company who don't have to deal with all of these, this massive... I mentioned it's going to be different working at a place like Merck is compared to a smaller you know pharmaceutical company.
Janet Diratsouian:
There are day-to-day, I want to say that we have established our work those over number of years, right? So, the regular workflows are already set up so employees know what they're responsible for and, thank goodness. at the moment we don't have a lot of turnover, so people know exactly what they are working on, so I didn't know if there are, you know, day-to-day, if there's specific tasks that I have to worry about or my boss has to worry about, but I think what we are more looking at is the future. Where are we going from today? Today, this is where we're at. We have the infrastructure of automation is set up, the infrastructure and the workflows were set up, as I said before, to support you, the existing ROPs within the work organization or high throughput screening etc etc. But I think, where are we going, as I was saying earlier, with biologics, what do we need to make sure that we are set up properly by the time we are, you know, we're going with supporting biologics or other modalities such as the, as I said earlier, ADC's, PDC's, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's something that we look at very carefully.
Another thing that we are really very diligent about within the work organization is the compliance we want to make sure that we are compliant with the regulations made with federal or state regulations, you know, controlled substances are really, really important for us to make sure that we're capturing those. And we also have, putting compound handling, for example, we are, you know, we are a company, we're a large company and we have oncology as one of our main areas of therapeutic area. And obviously we have put in compounds and we want put in compounds, right, we wanted to find put in compounds so that we can help our patients. The patients are worldwide so that they can see that they're cured. So, we are very diligent about stuff like that proactively looking to make sure that we are handling the putting compounds properly, we worked very closely with our 50 colleagues internally to make sure that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. So those are the things that I can think of, you know, software packages, we are open to the idea. So going back to Scigilian where, you know, we try to attend few of us every year to go to the sample management meetings, but also SLAS has the larger conferences as well. We try to attend those talk to the vendors to understand if there is anything out there and we are constantly, if you will, evaluating to see this is what we have right now. And is there anything else out there that handle what we need in a better way and uh, so those are all the things that we really try to look at.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, it sounds like one of the big advantages that you have is having these really well-established SOP's and workflows and that gives you the free time to look ahead which, it's something that sounds so obvious, but I feel like so much of the time people, we get bogged down in putting out fires in the day-to-day stuff and it really is getting that established system going that frees you up for the other things.
Janet Diratsouian:
Yeah, absolutely. Don't get me wrong, we do have to, I mean, on a daily basis, there are always things that go wrong and then we have to pitch in. But again, as you said before, if the ISP's are well established, the workflows are set up properly. Theoretically, everything should be going the way it should be, but again, there are always things that come up that we have to handle as well and make decisions about, right. So as somebody working in the lab again may not be able to take the liberty to make decisions about going either A or B or C. So, we may need to push in and make that type of decision.
Hannah Rosen:
And I imagine that it also runs the risk of getting stuck in that well-established workflow and not adapting to the change in times and needs, like for example you were saying, you know, back when your current, you know, sample management software was at the end of its life, you know, I feel like it very easily could have gotten just stuck in well, this is the workflow, this is the system. And then resistance to moving to a company like Scigilian.
Janet Diratsouian:
Yeah, that's correct. Absolutely. If you're not looking into the future and keeping your options open, as you said, I mean, then you're stuck and especially if you're software package that is internally developed is, you know, how long can you support it, right? We're not a software company, it's so much better for us to go outside and look at a company like Scigilian to see what their software packages are like and how it can help us do the job that we need to do. And just to be, I mean, we don't really, I mean I use Scigilian’s Request, but we don't really use it. We have an internal LIM system that we use to do the sample management end of it, right? It's mostly the chemist and the biologists that are using the Requesting application because they have to go in, look for what's available and then place their order. Which is really great with Scigilian Request, we have the possibility of ordering ad hoc if you will, but we also have the possibility of setting up assay submittals which is really very convenient for the end users. As an end user I should not have to remember an assay needs 20 microliters at 2 millimolar concentration in this format, and the recipient is blah blah blah. So, I think that's the really, really big advantage that we had seen since the beginning was with Scigilian’s Request that we set that really will work for us really, really well and it has, over time, it has proven that it is working well for us that capability.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, it reminds me of a conversation we've been having a lot as we talk about the lab of the future and automation becoming more integrated into the labs and how it used to be that we would rely on sort of, you know, one-size-fits-all company like, we go to one provider or we do everything in house for all of these different solutions, but now things are becoming so complicated and so specialized that it really does pay long term to go to the people who, this is the one thing that they do, they are the experts in it and they're going to get you the best possible device, product, software, what have you.
Janet Diratsouian:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's advantageous for us. Jerry is great to work with, Chatura is great to work with, we've had very positive experience with these guys in the past number of years that we've been working with them. So very responsive and listen to us and respond to even my emails.
Chatura Jayakody:
Fantastic. That's why we're here. You actually made a really good point if I might take us off topic or just move back a bit, is this biologics, right. Like, you have said you have to adapt. We, as a software vendor, needs to adapt too. So, we're looking at how we can serve that market and are there anything have you guys tried to format like how biologics are treated to close to what like small molecules are being treated or are you taking some novel approaches to kind of handling those samples? Does that make sense?
Janet Diratsouian:
We are still in the beginning stages of biologics, so we haven't really set up the processes and the SOP's as of yet we do have registration systems in house that the biologics can be registered as with an internal identifier. And so yeah, we're still in the beginning stages to where I'm sure there will be more coming as we move forward within that area. But at the moment really, yeah, we're still, yeah, trying to take, if I can put it that way, baby steps if you will. So, we are talking to one of our project teams to work with them to get some of the work those set up, but we're not there yet. Thank you. And just maybe, uh, a shout out to my colleague, Christina McNabb. She will be talking about that process at the sample management meeting in Washington next week.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, fantastic. Yeah. Well, so, you know, speaking of all of these upcoming challenges particularly, you know, biologics seems to be a big one on your minds at Merck, but I'm sure that there's many other challenges that you see coming up in the next, you know, 5 or 10 years. And I would be interested in hearing from both of you, you know, what do you think there are going to be any changes that will need to be made in the way that we manage or store these compounds to address these challenges and then, you know, what do you do? You have any plans on how you're going to adapt to those challenges?
Chatura Jayakody:
You want to go first, Janet?
Janet Diratsouian:
You better Chatura.
Chatura Jayakody:
Yeah. Well, for us, I think the biggest thing is incorporating AI and machine learning. I think that's the biggest, but those are big buzzwords, but they're actually happening, right? We see it happening. So how are we going to build our software or use our software and add to it. One good thing is we have data so it gives us the opportunity to practice some of these principles and I think we're still adding these things to our road map and kind of envisioning what AI and ML are gonna actively play specifically in the sample management space. And when we look at data analysis and data visualization that I think we have a better grasp because we actually have data sets to work with. And speaking to customers we do have, we also see a lot of new customers who are focused on AI, using AI and drug discovery too. So this is, I think, this is a space where we actively need to kind of focus on in the next, probably starting ASAP, but at least put a lot of effort in the next two or three years and we see a lot of innovative things happening out in the market as well.
Hannah Rosen:
Do you think that AI and ML can help kind of solve this problem we've been discussing with trying to determine if you can utilize some of the similar sample management techniques that you've done for small molecules and apply them to something else like biologics. Do you think that AI and ML could play a role in that?
Chatura Jayakody:
Honestly thought potentially yes, but again we have to kind of dive in and see hey, what are these workflows like and going to conferences like the sample management one which, I think is amazing, to learn a lot. Last year I remember we learned about the clinical side of things, and some people actually just and say, can you build something like Request for the clinical side of things? And again, just going to these conferences and understanding what is actually happening and these workflows are, I think, are the critical one is to figure out what's happening there. And then we're software company, so a lot of instrument vendors are going to jump in, and our goal is probably going to be, hey, how do we kind of interface with the customer, these instruments, the workflows and our software at some point?
Janet Diratsouian:
Yeah, I want to say, I have a little bit of a different take on AI and machine learning. My feeling is that I mean, we will have to wait and see how things will develop obviously in the future. However, my feeling is that using AI and with machine learning is going to be starting very early on within the discovery. I'm looking at it from again, my little world of discovery organization, right. So, I think there is a lot of, as Chatura said, that there's a lot of data available. But there was a lot of push going on everywhere, right, to use the data that's available. So that again, as we're moving along within a project that we do look at what is there already so that we do not have to synthesize tons of compounds to put into a specific therapeutic area or specific project, and target. And then I'm expecting that we're going to be seeing a lot less compounds being synthesized. So, a lot less compounds coming our way from the compound management perspective, if you will. And so, I think it will be changing the way we work today, definitely no doubt about it, but I don't know if, again, if we can use the data within the compound management group. I don't know how much information we can use to help us go which direction we need to go. Actually, I feel like that's going to have to be driven a little bit ahead before these compounds are being synthesized before they make their way into our labs. So, remains to be seen. There is a lot coming there are, I feel like there were. The discussion around AIML is everywhere, right, and a lot of resources are being put in all different industries, not just alone in the pharmaceutical industry. So, the next few years or the next year or two is going to be really important to see where we're headed with that.
Chatura Jayakody:
Yeah, I agree. And I think, again, like what Janeta said on one side of research and development work, for example, if you're doing high content, creating an image analysis is there, you can see how AI and ML can actually play a big role. When I look at sample management, again going to these conferences, and also the AI conference that's SLAS has actually helps inform us, so, you know, as a shout out good, great work, but I would love to see a bit more AI and kind of related talks at some of these conferences too, which is, you see them coming up a lot more and more. So, it's going to be interesting to see how people are thinking oK, how do you, I mean, robotics has been there for a while, right? So for us, that's nothing big, right? We use robots to do most of our work, liquid handlers to pickers, et cetera. So it is a very interesting area just to see how what creative ideas people are going to have to kind of put in the sample management space in terms of artificial intelligence.
Hannah Rosen:
Yeah, well, that's great feedback. We will certainly keep that in mind when we're planning the agenda for next year. Well, thank you both so much for joining me today and having this really insightful conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time and for everyone who listening, who is interested in learning more, our sample Management symposium is taking place in Washington, DC on October 12th through the 13th. And also, if you're interested in learning more about Scigilian’s products, we have a podcast episode that we released this time last year where we went into a little bit more detail about the different offerings from Scigilian. So go ahead and go back and listen to those. And Chatura and Janet again, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure having you guys with us today.
Janet Diratsouian:
Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity.
Chatura Jayakody:
Yeah. Thank you so much and thank you, Janet. For being here today too.
Janet Diratsouian:
You're welcome. Bye bye.
Chatura Jayakody:
Bye bye.
