Contents: Background | Introduction | Challenges | Journey | Why LabKey | Results | Conclusion
Background
Origin Sciences, part of The Origin Group Ltd (TOGL), is a diagnostics development company based in Cambridge, UK, focused on gastrointestinal disease and colorectal cancer. The company has managed more than five clinical trials, enrolled thousands of participants, and recently CE-marked several medical devices.
Colorectal cancer is the second-highest cause of cancer death worldwide, with incidence rising in those under 50. Despite survival rates of 85–90% in early stages, identifying the disease early remains a significant challenge. Current diagnostic pathways funnel large numbers of patients toward colonoscopy, an invasive procedure that confirms cancer in only one to four percent of cases. Origin Sciences has combined novel rectal mucus sampling and multimodal analytics to create a unique diagnostic assay that bridges the gap between clinical suspicion and colonoscopy. The assay characterizes rectal mucus through biomarkers from genetic, epigenetic, and microbiome analyses to enable earlier, more accurate risk stratification.
Introduction
Origin Sciences collects data across every stage of a complex research pipeline: clinical metadata, laboratory processing, and the extensive outputs of next-generation sequencing. Connecting this information and being able to act on it in real time, is central to how the company operates.
LabKey Sample Manager serves as Origin Sciences’ central hub, with all laboratory workflows and analytics extending from it.
Challenges
Data complexity at every stage: For every sample collected with Origin Sciences’ medical device, the lab produces at least 15 aliquots and derivatives, which may then pass through 25 assays and seven or eight distinct workflows before reaching sequencing. A single sample can undergo the same assay multiple times within a single workflow. Full traceability of exactly where, within a workflow, any given assay occurs is essential.
28 sample types to manage: The complexity described above applies not to a single sample type, but to 28. The scale and variety of data moving through the pipeline demanded a system capable of organizing and connecting it all.
Pre-analytics as a critical control point: If pre-analytical data is wrong, everything downstream is wrong — wasted reagents, wasted clinical material, wasted time, and potentially false diagnostic insights. The team needed a reliable way to detect underperforming batches early and prevent them from progressing through the pipeline.
A small team, high throughput: With limited headcount and significant data volumes, manual processes weren’t sustainable. The team needed a system that could absorb the data volume without adding headcount or manual spreadsheet overhead.
The Journey
Origin Sciences adopted Sample Manager as the foundation for their laboratory data infrastructure, using it to organize, store, and retrieve data across their full research pipeline. Working with the LabKey team to get up and running, they configured Sample Manager to reflect the complexity of their workflows — establishing traceability across sample types, derivatives, assays, and sequencing outputs.
From that foundation, Origin Sciences’ data team built a series of custom applications on top of Sample Manager’s REST API, pulling organized data from the platform and layering additional processing, visualization, and quality control capabilities on top. These tools have extended Sample Manager’s value, enabling the team to monitor pre-analytical quality, detect batch variation, link clinical metadata with sequencing outputs, and surface per-sample reports spanning the entire workflow.
AI-assisted development has compressed what previously took months into weeks, a meaningful difference for a team without the headcount to absorb slow build cycles.
Why LabKey
A central hub for complex, multi-stage data: With 28 sample types, 15 aliquots and derivatives per sample, and data flowing in from clinical sources, lab instruments, and sequencing pipelines, Origin Sciences needed a platform capable of organizing and connecting it all. Sample Manager provides that foundation.
“Sample Manager is our central hub and our workflows, and our analytics all extend from it.” — Alasdair MacRitchie, R&D Manager, Origin Sciences
Full traceability across a deep workflow: Knowing exactly where in a workflow a given assay has taken place and being able to step back through the chain when something looks wrong, is fundamental to the integrity of Origin Sciences’ diagnostics work.
A platform built for extension: Sample Manager’s REST API has enabled Origin Sciences to build a suite of custom applications that layer real-time quality intelligence, automated trend detection, and per-sample reporting on top of their organized data. Early detection of underperforming batches prevents wasted reagents and clinical material from moving downstream. Automated tooling has cut the manual lab work previously required to maintain that oversight, freeing the team to process more samples at higher throughput.
Results
End-to-end data traceability: Sample Manager provides a connected record across the full Origin Sciences laboratory pipeline, from sample collection through processing, and enables Origin’s bespoke applications to connect all that data within Sample Manager to sequencing, and bioinformatics output, allowing the team to trace any result back to its source.
Earlier detection of quality issues: Automated monitoring of the bespoke application, built on Sample Manager’s data via the API, flags underperforming batches before they move downstream.
Significantly reduced manual work: Custom tooling built on Sample Manager’s API has eliminated much of the manual spreadsheet maintenance previously required of the lab team, freeing capacity for higher-throughput sample processing.
More from a small team: Sample Manager as a data foundation, combined with AI-assisted development, has allowed a small team to build and maintain sophisticated data infrastructure faster than headcount alone would allow.
Conclusion
For Origin Sciences, LabKey Sample Manager is the data foundation utilized for the company’s research and diagnostic pipelines. By establishing it as a central hub and extending its capabilities through their own software development, Origin Sciences has built a connected, traceable environment that lets a small team operate well above its headcount.
“Introducing monitoring and traceability early is key. Using Sample Manager to organize and store our data has been so useful — it’s made our pre-analytical data actionable so that we can do our downstream analysis on it.” — Tom Maddison, Bioinformatician, Origin Sciences
Hear it first hand from Origin Science’s user presentation at the 2026 Sample Manager User Conference