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Our objective is to discover languages and tools for biology that scientists will find indispensable for their own work, and that directly support communication and collaboration. Such languages and tools are widely used in all of the engineering disciplines--circuit diagrams for electrical engineers, hardware description languages for integrated circuit designers, and 3D mechanical models for mechanical engineers. For biologists, we are developing a ubiquitous laboratory assistant, based on a formal language for describing laboratory procedures, that has the potential to simplify laboratory work, foster new forms of collaboration, and promote the application of computational tools, while helping to train biologists in the skills and standards that will be needed in the laboratories of the future. Labscape is a ubiquitous software and computer hardware system that is always at the biologist’s fingertips, anticipates what will happen next in the lab, and gathers and organizes data as laboratory work is performed.Laboratory environments are frequently reconfigured with many shared
devices and work areas, and with people on the move. The lab worker’s
experience must remain consistent in this dynamic environment, without the
need to own, reconfigure or reprogram devices. At the same time, we
must discover a paradigm for human-computer interaction that is
appropriate for experiment capture in a smart laboratory environment. The
Labscape project is in close collaboration with the Cell Systems
Initiative of UW's Department of Bioengineering, local biotechnology companies,
and with the department's Portolano Program.
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