Assay data is captured in LabKey Biologics using Assay Designs. Each Assay Design includes fields for capturing experimental results and metadata about them. Once a design has been created, many runs of data matching that format can be imported with the same design. This topic describes how administrators create and manage the Assay Designs available in the system.

• Overview
• Assay Dashboard
• Create a New Assay Design

Overview

Each field has a name and data type. For example, the following Assay Design captures data from a Titration experiment.

The fields in an Assay Design are grouped into categories:

• Run Fields: These are metadata fields that apply to one complete cycle of the experimental instrument or procedure. Example run-level metadata fields might be: Operator (the lab technician who executed the experiment) or Instrument (the name of the lab instrument in which the experiment was performed).
• Results (Data) Fields: These fields capture the main results of your experiment, for example, see above.
• Other Categories: In some cases, there will be additional sets, such as Cell- or Analyte-level fields.

Assay Dashboard

Under Assays on the main menu, you will see a listing of designs already created in your system. Click Assays to open the dashboard.

The dashboard lists the assay design names and types. If your server includes any shared assays, you will also see them listed here. To create a shared or project scoped assay design, use the LabKey Server interface.

Click the name of an existing design to see the assay properties and a grid of runs imported using it. Use the Manage menu to:

• Edit Assay Design
• Copy Assay Design
• Export Assay Design
• Delete Assay Design
• View Audit History

Create a New Assay Design

To create a new assay design in LabKey Biologics, follow this process. Make sure to start from the container where you want to define the assay.

• From the main menu, click Assays, then click Create Assay Design.

• Select the Assay Type. For most cases, leave the Standard Assay tab selected.
• Learn more about using Specialty Assays in this topic: Design a New Assay.
• Click Choose Standard Assay.

• Creating a standard assay in Biologics is the same as described in the Sample Manager documentation here:
• Describe Assay Data Structure
• Creating specialty assays follows a similar process. Specific properties of the specialty assays can be found in this section:
• Assay Types

Related Topics

• Biologics: Assay Data
• Describe Assay Data Structure
• Sample Manager Documentation for Assays