BioManagerYour databases
Experiments, for every animal
Treatment groups, doses from body weight, readouts and the stats, for every animal.
Mice, zebrafish, flies, worms and your own organisms all have an Experiments tab beside their other tabs (Mice and Cages; Tanks and Fish; the vials or plates). New experiment there can start with a whole cage, tank, rack or housing of them. One page shows each experiment, and All experiments on it goes back to the tab.
| Mice | Mice, or a whole cage. Body weight (or tumour volume, a clinical score, survival). Injections, challenges, treatments, surgery, behaviour, sampling, imaging. |
|---|---|
| Zebrafish | Fish rows, a whole tank, or a clutch's larvae. Survival (how many of those at the start are alive), standard length or a phenotype. Drug in the water, microinjection, heat shock, injury or fin clip. |
| Flies and worms | Vials or plates, or a whole rack; say how many each started with. They have no body weight: survival, or eclosion and climbing for flies, brood size and paralysis for worms. Drug in the food or on the plate, RNAi feeding, temperature shifts, starvation, infection, flipping to fresh food. |
| Any other organism | Animals, groups or cohorts, or a whole housing. Body weight, length, survival or a score. |
Any experiment can follow a readout of its own (Readout → Something else…): a number for each, or how many of those at the start.
The page
- The experiment on top: name, status, start (day 1), end, readout and description, saved as you type.
- The sheet of its animals switches between Treatment — each manipulation day a column: ✓ and the amount for each animal that got it (click to change) — and the readout, a column a day, typed in place (Another day adds one). Each animal's group is edited here too.
- Record manipulation records what was just done — the HDM group got Tamoxifen 20 mg/kg i.p. today — or a day of the regimen. For a dose per body weight it works out each animal's amount from its latest weight, and the volume given the solution (10 mg/mL). Tick the animals it was done to, pick the Reagent used (its lot is kept; an expired one is flagged) and, if you want, make a sample record for each one in Samples, with the animal as its source.
- The chart shows the readout by group over the days (the value, or its % of the first; for a count, % of those at the start). Each manipulation day is a dashed line: point at it to see what was done that day, by whom. Stars mark the days the groups differ, and Tests by day below lists each test (Welch's t-test for two groups, one-way ANOVA for more, χ² for counts), each day on its own.
The regimen
Regimen lists what is to be done and on which days: the kind, what, dose, route, solution, group and days
(1, 2-5, 2/3/4/5, 1, 8, 15). Day 1 is the start date. The days to do
are on the calendar, and the experiment's owner gets a notification each morning of what is due (turn it off in
Settings → Notifications → Experiments). Nothing is done until someone records it on the page. Save as a
regimen… keeps it to plan the next cohort from.
At the bench, and afterwards
- Bench mode (scan its QR code with a phone): pick what you are doing, then one animal at a time with big numbers — type each weight or count, or give each today's manipulation and tap Given ✓; record it at the end. Scan a card reads a cage, tank or vial card with the phone's camera and jumps to the animal in it.
- Export downloads an Excel workbook: the readout, long (for Prism or R) and wide, each animal's manipulations, and the tests by day.
- Add to notebook makes your notebook page for the experiment, with a live view of its manipulations and readout
(
/experimentadds one to any page; Freeze a copy keeps it as it is now).