Contents: Background | Introduction | Challenges | Journey | Why LabKey | Results | Conclusion
Background
GenQA is a UK-based external quality assessment (EQA) provider for medical genomics laboratories. Headquartered in Edinburgh with a distributed scientific team across the UK and Europe, GenQA supports over 2,000 participating laboratories across 101 countries. They currently offer 124 EQA programs spanning end-to-end testing—from pre-examination (referral and sample handling) through examination (wet-lab and bioinformatics) to post-examination (interpretation, reporting, and genetic counseling).
Introduction
GenQA implemented LabKey Sample Manager to replace a mix of spreadsheets and a legacy sample tracking tool. The objective was to robustly record, track, and retrieve diverse materials across reception, preparation, distribution, and storage, in support of EQA schemes that assess complete laboratory workflows.
Challenges
GenQA faced these data management challenges:
“LIMS in reverse” data model: Instead of tracking many tests per patient, GenQA must track one source sample that becomes many derived items and EQA test articles, sometimes pooled or diluted to create synthetic controls.
Operational scale and heterogeneity: Intakes bulk commercial samples at a time; materials include DNA, blood (including dried blood spots), fixed cells, FFPE tissue sections, fresh tissue, plasma, saliva, images, and data files.
Fragmented records and limited search: Multiple Excel files and a prior system with poor linking, slow receipt workflows, and weak search made it difficult for a remote workforce to find and interrogate data.
Traceability expectations: ISO 15189-aligned EQAs require transparent lineage, documentation, and the ability to compare methodologies and outcomes.
File management constraints: Need to associate multiple documents per record (e.g., validation and distribution paperwork) without having to create extra fields and columns.
The Journey
GenQA’s journey to Sample Manager consisted of these steps:
Market evaluation: Four alternatives were trialed, and LabKey offered the best overall value—combining functionality, configurability, storage capacity, and search functionality. Their highly responsive support during the Guided Trial experience stood out among other trials.
Design and validation: Following the selection of Sample Manager, GenQA partnered with LabKey to prepare for implementation:
- Defined material types with shared and variable fields.
- Designed numbering formats; iterated to preserve historic identifiers.
- Prototyped derivation, pooling, aliquoting, bulk import, and updates.
- Migrated legacy spreadsheets without renumbering freezers or archives.
- Executed formal validation of customizations and cleared test data pre-go-live.
Implementation: GenQA successfully implemented bulk receipt of large commercial lots in a single action and enabled sample derivation and lineage visualizations. They also adopted saved searches and ad-hoc filtering across teams while attaching documents directly to sample records.
Discoveries and adaptations: As usage matured, GenQA refined its configuration to reduce noise, clarify search behavior, and align records with operational workflows. In partnership with LabKey, the team explored the flexibility of the system’s existing features to meet the unique EQA‑specific needs.
Why LabKey
Sample Manager delivered high-value capabilities aligned to GenQA’s EQA workflows, including:
High-performance search: Multi-field filtering, partial-string search matching, saved searching, and easy exporting all support ad-hoc queries—critical for their distributed staff.
Derivation & lineage at scale: Visual “family tree” of samples—from a parent vial to an aliquot, derivative, or pooled sample.
Bulk operations: Spreadsheet upload creation and updates support large intake batches and concentration updates in one action.
Configurable schema: Material-specific and shared fields were implemented without custom code; evolvable as programs expand.
Responsive support: Rapid, collaborative responses enabled a short learning curve and continue to allow for smooth iterations.
Results
GenQA had these results across throughput, traceability, and data access:
Throughput: Booking 60–100 samples now takes around two minutes per batch, where it previously took about a full day in the legacy tool.
Traceability: Lineage graphs and linked derivations provide immediate verification of re-embedding, pooling proportions, and synthetic sample construction.
Data accessibility: Intuitive ad-hoc searching across all sample fields enables team leads to answer specific questions without time-consuming data wrangling.
Change management: Historic sample identifiers were retained, and no freezer relabeling was required for this migration.
Process consolidation: When spreadsheets and prior system imports were consolidated in the new system, updates are still executed via bulk upload rather than individual manual edits.
User adoption: Remote scientists routinely save and reuse searches, and documentation is uploaded as PDFs at point-of-work.
Conclusion
GenQA implemented LabKey Sample Manager to support an EQA-focused workflow covering a wide array of genomic materials. By using bulk operations, flexible search, clear lineage, and pragmatic schema design with Sample Manager, GenQA has significantly reduced intake time, improved traceability, and made data readily usable by a distributed team. The organization continues to evolve its configuration—adding images/data as a formal material type, importing storage logs, and selectively re-introducing aliquots for pre-aliquoted commercial materials. They also continue collaborating with LabKey on file handling and reporting enhancements.
Hear first hand from GenQA about how they’ve implemented Sample Manager for international sample tracking.