International LIMS Conference Enters Second Decade

With the 11th International LIMS Conference, aka LIMS '97, the International LIMS Conference has now entered its second decade. According to LIMS '97 Conference Chairman John Trigg, "the challenge is still here and the LIMS industry continues to grow. It is driven by the ability to stay on top of technology, particularly with the integration of the web technology -- in fact, the growth of the web is unprecedented in the ability to perform information delivery."

"Since its inception," he continued, "the conference has sought to fulfill the needs of those of us involved in specifying, purchasing, implementing, supporting, developing and selling LIMS. The needs may not have changed over the years, but the expectations and the supporting technologies have."

Information Integration in Cyberspace

Each year the International LIMS Conference attempts to focus on a specific aspect or theme related to LIMS according to Trigg. This year, the focus was on the underlying technology, and attempted to come to terms with the impact of the Internet and Intranets on LIMS. "It seems quite remarkable to think back to the last time the conference was held in Europe [Bonn 1995]," mused Trigg, "that Web technology was then in its infancy -- as far as LIMS was concerned. In this short space of time, we have witnessed a technological revolution which has identified the Web as a primary vehicle for the delivery of information in all walks of life."

LIMS '97 was true to its theme of "Information Integration in Cyberspace: LIMS and Beyond" by emphasizing the various advantages of Web technology. The conference kicked off with a keynote presentation by Dr. Reinhold Schaefer of Wiesbaden University who provided an in-depth tutorial/overview of what makes the Web work. He was followed by Tim Long of Amgen Corporation who described Amgen's Intranet LIMS, and then by Helen Gillespie, LIMS/Letter editor and LIMSource webmaster, with a quick overview of the information available in the LIMSource, a web site on the Internet. This theme continued to unfold throughout the conference.

A Comprehensive Program

The conference was held in The Hague, The Netherlands from June 3-5, 1997. Several well-received short courses were held prior to the conference. The conference program itself included some 42 plenary lectures, parallel breakout sessions and vendor/user workshops, as well as poster sessions. According to Siri H. Segalstad, LIMS '97 Program Chairman, "the presentations were given by representatives from 12 countries and included information for newcomers as well as experienced users." In addition an exhibition featured more than 30 exhibitors, including market leaders in LIMS and related lab data management products.

What Was New

The LIMS vendor consolidation that has been so active in the US has also been occurring in Europe. Delaware Computing purchased Triple P in August 1996 and will migrate Triple P's DOS Didyma LIMS to their own ILIS LIMS on an upgrade path.

New vendors and new LIMS were also in evidence, particularly Advanced Chemistry Development (ACD) who attended their first LIMS exhibition and introduced the first spectroscopic LIMS. More importantly, they tout their LIMS as the first fully Web-based LIMS since it was written in HTML and uses Java applets. But Delaware Computing also introduced their ILIS-New Era LIMS which was written in Java too. No rest for the weary!

Kebo Lab also exhibited at the conference for the first time, although the company has been selling LIMS and LIS for several years. Because of the clinical/hospital orientation of their product, it is built for fast turnaround.

New LIMS (as opposed to upgrades) were launched by Compex, Delaware Computing, LabLogic Systems, Thermo LabSystems, and Wilnor.

Enhancements abounded, with many vendors demonstrating upgrades to their previous system, including Autoscribe, Beckman, Blaze Systems, Comlabs, PE Nelson, and T&P

Modules were also big in Europe, as they had been at Pittcon, with several shown by CREON, Hewlett-Packard, ICD, LabVantage Solutions, LabWare, PE Nelson, Phoenix International, Shell Services, and Wilnor.

CD-ROMs were big at this conference, with several vendors providing demo disks of their product capabilities, including ACD, PE Nelson and Thermo LabSystems. In fact, Thermo LabSystems has supplied extra copies for circulation with this issue to all LIMS/Letter subscribers who may not have attended the conference.

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