Benchling Delivers an Integrated R&D Ecosystem with New Product Offerings

New product features include JMP integration, BLAST, and AlphaFold to drive faster decision-making and better data-driven insights as labs scale their R&D

Benchling, the R&D Cloud powering the biotechnology industry, today launched new integrations and features that connect data and analytics tools directly in Benchling with just a few clicks, providing scientists with a connected platform to make faster decisions and generate better insights. Scientists now have out-of-the-box integrations to leading scientific analytics tools like JMP as well as Pluto and Watershed. This delivers effortless push and pull of data, results, and charts between Benchling and these solutions, along with API endpoints for developers to build their own analytics integrations. In addition, scientists can now use the latest, powerful sequence analysis algorithms BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and AlphaFold for protein and DNA/RNA sequence design and analysis within Benchling’s comprehensive RNA Therapeutics and Molecular Biology products. To simplify instrument data capture and analysis, Benchling also announced an open source library of instrument data converters that automatically format instrument-generated data to the Allotrope Simple Model (ASM) standard, available this July. 

Digital and analytics solutions have proven their value in R&D. McKinsey reports that leading pharma companies that leverage these solutions have achieved up to 50% reductions in early-stage drug discovery time and development costs. However, such achievements are not widespread due to the fragmented nature of these solutions. On any given day, scientists jump between multiple systems and point solutions to review, input, and analyse data, resulting in inefficient workflows and costly errors. Biotechs’ expanding collection of lab instruments, which produce massive amounts of data in proprietary formats, furthers the data and systems sprawl. These silos and lack of instrument integration have significant consequences. Benchling data reveals that scientists spend an average of 18 hours per week on cumbersome data logistical tasks, such as data capture, search, sample traceability, collation, and tracking scientific requests. As biotechs scale their R&D, Benchling customers now benefit from a connected, unified platform where they can easily integrate various digital and analytics tools and standardise data. 

“By using the tools in JMP for customisation, scripting with JSL, and mass customisation, Benchling built an integration that is a win for scientists and for research and development overall. Having a seamless connection between these two systems makes science flow faster and more efficiently. Scientists that rely on both Benchling and JMP every day to manage their R&D can now make their work that much more easy, convenient, and integrated,” said Daniel Valente, Director of Product Management, JMP.

“When R&D is connected, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. At Benchling, we’re working against the tendency towards inflexible, closed data models and fragmented, proprietary systems. We know that biotechs succeed faster when they operate in a connected environment with effortless access to intelligent tools and standardized data. We’re delivering on a connected lab today with our latest launch at Benchling” said Shawna Wolverton, Chief Product Officer, Benchling.

New tools and integrations include: 

• Streamlined analytics and codeless data set creation: Instead of writing code to organize and analyse data, scientists can simply point and click to create datasets from Registry or Result schemas, and then easily push that dataset into analytics tools like JMP, Pluto, and Watershed, as well as import their analysed data, results, and charts directly into Benchling. Plus, scientists can easily upload results via Benchling’s API to Notebook entries to keep their tables up-to-date.
• Enhanced data standardisation: Benchling makes FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data achievable for labs with its new library of open-source converters that automatically format instrument-generated data to the Allotrope Simple Model (ASM) standard. In making tools to easily standardise instrument data freely available, Benchling eliminates the manual effort involved in processing, integrating, securing, and managing instrument data for scientific R&D. Open-sourced converters will be made available in GitHub starting in July.  
• Intelligent tools for efficient sequence design: Scientists can now leverage user-friendly tools, AlphaFold and BLAST, to analyse and design sequences at scale. With Benchling's integration of AlphaFold, scientists generate 3D structures of novel proteins with exceptional accuracy, reducing the need for expensive and time-consuming wet lab experiments. With BLAST, which infers functional and evolutionary relationships between sequences and identification of members of gene families, scientists have embedded access to computational methods to gain insights on biological samples.

For more information, timing and availability, please visit: https://www.benchling.com/whats-new