Using IT for Democratizing Science

Using WordPress and Blazor to Make Science More Accessible

Labbook Tech has recently been established to help more researchers have access to capable Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs). We do this by building ELNs that are Sustainable, Affordable, Flexible, and Easy (abbreviated as S.A.F.E.).

  • Sustainable - Utilize technologies that are expected to be supported for many years to come
  • Affordable - Free and open source foundations and sustained by competitive business models
  • Flexible - Flexibility in configuring features for the ELN and in support and hosting options
  • Easy - Minimal difficulty in getting started and in overcoming any challenges

Our initial focus is the use of WordPress for ELNs and research websites. For the long term we are investigating the use of Blazor for more sophisticated data collection and analysis.

Our History

As a company Labbook Tech is quite young, but the founder has worked for several decades in IT roles related to science and engineering. Since 2010, we have been building biotechnology research websites - first for the University of Houston and then for an NSF funded consortium of educational institutions. We are currently preparing a cloud based service for standardized WordPress ELNs. Development is taking place at LabBook.Cloud.

Our Mission

Our overall mission is to help democratize lab research. We plan to do this by helping all types of researchers have access to more affordable and easy to use information technology (IT) research tools. These tools include Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs), Laboratory Information Systems (LIMS), and Scientific Data Management Systems (SDMS). Our approach is to leverage the best and most democratizing of any IT development. This will help to satisfy research needs more quickly and improve the ease of use and affordability of research software. For the near term, our mission is to lower barriers to using ELNs with the S.A.F.E. attributes. We are utilizing WordPress based ELNs because of their somewhat unique S.A.F.E. qualities. More information about this approach is available at MyLabBook.org.

Our Vision

For our long-term vision, we believe there is great potential in using web assembly for research tools. Currently, the most advanced standardized implementation for web assembly is the open source Blazor framework from Microsoft. Therefore, we are in the exploration phase for using Blazor for a research framework. We believe by utilizing some of the best practices in IT (e.g., DevOps) we can develop free and open source research software that is both more powerful as well as easier to use and extend compared to what is available today. More information about this development is available at iLabBook.org.

Helping to Advance Science Through Good Research Tools

the scientist ... must have confidence that there is order in the universe and that the human mind - in fact his own mind - has a good chance of understanding this order.
- Charles Townes, 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics

What We Manage

We manage several websites that further the democratization of lab research.

MyLabBook

Resources about how to build a Sustainable, Affordable, Flexible, and Easy (S.A.F.E.) ELN using WordPress. Downloadable files for creating clone of site at free-eln.org. More information is available at MyLabBook.org.

Free-ELN

This is an example of an ELN that is built entirely from WordPress and uses only free plugins. Information is available on the site about how to reproduce this free ELN for yourself. More information is available at free-eln.org.

Low-Cost-ELN

This is the Free-ELN that has been upgraded with some pro versions of the plugins. This provides more features for those who are willing to invest a few hundred dollars in their ELN. More information is available at low-cost-eln.com.

iLabBook

Preliminary design documentation for an open-source, state-of-the-art research framework built on Blazor and web assembly technologies. More information is available at iLabBook.org.















Direct Contacts

Please feel free to contact us using the information below or by using the adjacent form. We will try get back with you shortly.

+1 832-236-5560
info@labbook.tech

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