ABS Blog

An extension of your laboratory or laboratories has been a tag line of ABS for 32 years. It conveys the essence of our Mission to make discovery faster, easier, and more reliable. In practical terms, ABS is your virtual lab partner, providing you with human biospecimens, cell culture services and services related to the processing, analyses, and storage of biological materials. While this post could elaborate upon the specifics of how our services accelerate the work of our clients, this post focuses on the important difference between laboratory and laboratories in how we advance our clients’ missions.

Although all of us understand the importance of a clean and orderly laboratory, experiments and life happen, and the best of intentions are not always acted upon. At ABS, cleaning is a regular part of our operations. Because we are moving to a new facility, hopefully by year end, we are intensifying those efforts to clear any clutter. This will facilitate our move and it helps us to streamline our operations to deliver quality. One area where we continuously strive to make improvements is with sample storage. It is critical that we never lose or misplace a sample. Similarly, many of our clients have asked us for assistance in this area.

Nearly every quarter, I present a brief review of ABS’ operations, finances, and important news with the entire company. The above title in a sense summarizes my next presentation. I often begin by discussing our mission statement and how what we are doing relates to it. This is followed by a brief update on our financials. Then, we look at our progress towards our current goals, and ideally, we check off a few key objectives. Finally, I go through a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

For the past seven years, the Broad Institute and UC Berkeley have contested the patent rights for the CRISPR Cas9 gene-editing technology for eukaryotic cells. It appears that this is now settled pending any appeals by UC Berkley. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has decided in favor of the Broad Institute. Please see: Broad Institute Wins CRISPR Patent Case | Technology Networks for more information on this topic. The USPTO decision has important ramifications for those using CRISPR for drug discovery and for those contracting with companies for CRISPR related services such as cell line engineering.

My previous post mentioned that we will soon launch a new Client Portal. The purpose of the Portal is to provide our clients with critical information about their requests and orders along with data related to their orders.

Information is the oxygen of an organization. Restrict it and productivity is starved. Share it effectively, and workflows are faster, more productive, and innovation can flourish. The free sharing of ideas lead to inclusion and innovation. Too often, organizations and individuals foster secrecy by either not trusting their employees or based upon misguided effort to control operations by limiting information access. This lack of trust is often fear based.

The critical work of discovering new therapies and new diagnostics is a long and resource intensive process. Too often important, but non-core tasks, delay the real work of discovery. ABS’ goal is to enable scientists and their companies to succeed more quickly by freeing their resources for mission critical activities.

Happy New Year to all our readers! We wish you good health and happiness in the coming year. At this time of year, many of us make plans and resolutions. Similarly, at ABS, we map out our year and beyond.

Our primary source of ideas for innovation is founded in the challenges and concerns of our clients and staff. ABS began thirty-one years ago based upon the observation that a large amount of a researcher’s time was often spent growing cells and sourcing and preparing tissues (both animal and human) prior to even beginning an actual experiment. These tasks delayed discovery and expended valuable resources. This knowledge led us to become the first company to address this problem by providing custom cell culture services, prepared membranes and cell extracts, and founding a global network of human biospecimen collection sites. Today, such outsourcing is commonplace. In 1990, it was highly innovative.

In a growing organization, employees should be the key drivers of change. They can also put the brakes on new innovations if they are not an integral part of the change process. It is the collaborative interactions between clients, staff, and management that make meaningful changes happen.