ELNs haven’t influenced research behaviour as much as you'd think. Why not?

In September 2025, my consulting company was hired to find alpha testers for Lab Thread; a collaborative platform developed by Ryan Cawood and Deyan Sultov in response to an unmet need Ryan identified as CEO at OXGENE, namely the lack of easy to use and scalable solutions for the digital management of lab workflows.

Lab Thread’s goal was simple: build a platform so intuitive and effective that scientists choose it over pen and paper; and prefer it over existing products. It must provide the functionality scientists need at each stage of their career and make the solution work alongside their other essential tools.

My mission

My mission was to conduct market research and collect unbiased, customer-centric viewpoints on what bench scientists really need when recording data, designing experiments, and cataloguing samples. I wanted to understand how the needs shift between academic research, therapeutic or technology development and CRO services.

As a PhD student in Leeds, when I routinely went to bed after 10pm, my car (Vivvian - AKA the disAstra) cost less than my Nokia and gene synthesis was a luxury, I remember searching through handwritten lab books to find the whereabouts of an early passage HEK cell and the origin story of a gifted plasmid.  I’d cross my fingers and hope the tubes were labelled accurately and stored as indicated  in the hand written 96 well grid paper. It’s quite possible they had been freeze thawed a million times or left out in the Yorkshire sun by a project student, but we will never know.

Oddly, my award for academic of the year wasn’t very forthcoming, though I did continue pipetting for a few more years, helping to design and produce antibodies. This involved a lot of detailed note taking, figure generation, inventory management, templated reporting and protocol use. Even with a high level of care and attention to detail, I was still called upon by my successors for some time after moving on to help with locations and protocols.

Fast forward to 2025, spending time with researchers in Oxford, London, Bristol, Bath and Exeter, I was fascinated to see how tools have evolved since I finished my PhD 15 years ago. I couldn’t find a biotech or start-up that wasn’t using an ELN; so that’s progress, but my interviews uncovered frustrations that resonated with all of us here.  Conversely, and to my surprise, the "status quo" in academia still involved paper lab books, ring binders, and disconnected data folders.

Discoveries along the way

The risk of hard-earned experience being lost between lab bench residencies still exists and that struck me as absurd. I asked myself what I thought was an important question: Why isn’t every scientific researcher using a digital platform to plan and document their research, even with free platforms available? What would it take to help give everyone the confidence and motivation to modernise?

The evolution of protocols, the ability to cross reference past efforts and recall unusual results is what leads to serendipitous discovery. The founding concepts and IP for biotech companies, or pre-clinical data for therapeutic campaigns are largely born out of academic institutions. So shouldn’t every element of this research be traceable, searchable and secure? Shouldn’t this be taught to students and engrained into the daily habits of academic researchers? And shouldn’t the platform be accessible by every stage of a researcher’s career?

Perhaps I should make it my mission to become an authority on the subject. I could share fact checked references related to the most reported legal disputes in biotech. Making claims that using an ELN with digital time stamp functionality at early stage research would save a lot of money and future heartache.  But I know my intellectual limits, and the surf looks good this weekend, so I'll save you that.

Common pain points in lab workflows

What I will say though, is that during this project, our alpha testers shared some common concerns that helped me get closer to an answer to my question:

• Data Continuity: The loss of progress and protocols when lab members move on.
• Static Workflows: The inability to continue work or access data outside of the physical office.
• Slow Feedback Loops: The struggle to get fast, clear, specific and documented feedback and advice from supervisors and collaborators.
• Handover Hurdles: The difficulty of recording and passing on tasks during shift work or complex collaborative projects.
• Cloud Scepticism: A lingering hesitation around using web-hosted platforms for sensitive data.
• Cost: The existing solutions don’t seem to be affordable for everyone at every stage of their career, or at every growth stage of an organisation.

I showed our testers the early-stage platform to see how close we were to addressing these concerns. Their feedback was compelling, so I joined Ryan and Deyan to be their Commercial Director.

Lab Thread's solution

Fast forward to March 2026, and Lab Thread is now in Beta testing. We also remain convinced that since digital platforms for planning experiments and recording data are expected in Biotech and Pharma, PhD students and post docs should adopt these good habits early in their career. But for that to happen, the technology must be easily accessible. That's why we announced an always-free version of our software for small academic labs.

But electronic lab notebooks have been widely available for over 10 years now, and we estimate that over 80% of academics would still rather write in a paper lab book. The price of a subscription cannot be the only thing standing between a Group Leader and a life of digital harmony. I suspect that a big chunk of it is habit. And the way things have always been done. Paper is quick. It's easy. It doesn’t require additional effort. For Lab Thread to compete— not with other software, but with a good old fashioned pen and paper— it has to be equally painless. The driving force behind Lab Thread's design has been "this mustn't slow scientists down". It's designed to be easy to sign up, simple and intuitive to use, and easy to implement into your working style by:

• Reducing admin burden with ELN templates, which are still flexible enough to customise for any workflow. 
• Working with Excel spreadsheets (retaining all inbuilt logic), supporting “ready for powerpoint” figure-assembly.
• Allowing teams to review data and add comments at data or project level, ensuring that collaboration tools work for you whether you’re in the weeds or looking for the 20,000 foot view.
• Including molecular biology, sample tracking and project management tools so all your project data lives in the same place - and you only need one subscription.

So there we have it. Lab Thread is simple, intuitive, and free for academic labs. Why not give it a go and let me know what you think?

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