We had Omar Abouzid from EasyPanel to discuss the new developments that comes with version 2. I’ve been pretty happy with the tool so far, but I’m now very excited to see how the new antibody inventory system will work out.

The panel design tool itself has a few new bells and whistles that are neat. Firstly, the type of sample preparation can now be factored in when choosing parameters, specifically with regards to fixation and digestion where only compatible clones will be proposed. Furthermore, specific clones can be selected  for – or excluded – which should make the final panel cleaner. When making your clone selection, you’ll notice that they are now color-coded, letting you know which are preferred and which should be avoided. Finally, the interface itself is a bit cleaner, and you now have tabs to showcase different panels, instead of separate windows.

The inventory tool looks promising. It will allow labs to fairly easily enter their antibody collections in a database that can later be selected as the main pool from which the markers will be selected when creating a new panel. A template is made available, and the users simply need to enter the catalog number to get the full set of information bout each of them. From there, the panel design tool will go pick any missing markers from the antibody manufacturers catalogs. It somewhat limits the quality of the panel since it’s no longer trying to create the very best panel without restrictions on markers availability, but it could save money to the participating labs. These antibody inventories can be shared between groups, although I’m hoping to see improvements on how this will be done.

We spent the last few minutes of the webinar discussing the SmartBuyer tool, which allows users to shop for the best markers. It allows you to rank your search criteria in order to get the markers that will provide you the best bang for your buck. It looks nice, but keep in mind that it doesn’t include the various discounts that you might be eligible to as a member of the University of Chicago. So I’m unsure how useful it will be in the end. Have a look and let me know!

EasyPanel is provided to the research community on campus at no extra charge. All you need to do to use EasyPanel is to register using your UoC email address.

Check the link below to see the full webinar.