Connected Records for Colony and Facility Decisions
Kit Ip and Andreas Staubi look at the Lab of the Future from the colony and institutional levels.
Both perspectives begin with information that should be easier for authorized teams to see and use.
A Clearer View Of The Colony
Kit Ip, Product Owner | Colony
Lab operates traditionally with spreadsheets in one tab, breeding logs in another, cage cards on paper, and IACUC records in a filing cabinet. It works but takes time, and every handoff between systems is prone to error.
The lab of the future looks different. Relevant animal records, including strain, genotype, cage, lineage, and protocol information, could be easier to view together, visible at a glance instead of pieced together by hand. A non-productive breeder surfaces as it happens, not weeks later during a routine check.
Colony management moves from reactive to predictive, forecasting breeding outcomes before they're needed. Better tracking may reduce unnecessary handling, as handling animals can affect welfare and skew results.
None of this is about adding technology for its own sake. It's about giving time back to the people — and the animals — at the center of science.
An Institution Ready To Advise Researchers
Andreas Staubi, Product Owner | tick@lab
The Lab of the Future starts one level up: at the research institution.
Institutions are moving beyond the "cage hotel" model — providing space and animals — to become trusted advisors to research, driving the standards that define compliance, animal welfare, the 3Rs, reproducibility, and operational efficiency.
To lead in that role, institutions need a comprehensive view: connected records spanning protocols and compliance, experiment, breeding, health, environment, finance, and diagnostics — bridging data and the physical world instead of scattering it across disconnected systems.
Transnetyx enables this shift. tick@lab connects protocols, colonies, and TYX diagnostic services into a single system, so institutions can advise, not just administer. Emerging assisted tools could support protocol work and animal health monitoring, subject to appropriate review — giving institutions time to lead, not chase paperwork.
The Lab of the Future isn't a facility. It's an institution that has become the advisor its researchers need.
At AALAS 2026, explore how connected records could support decisions across your research facility.
