Screensaver HTS LIMS

Screensaver HTS LIMS

Original author(s)	John Sullivan, Andrew Tolopko
Developer(s)	Sean Erickson, others
Initial release	September 16, 2009 (2009-09-16)
Discontinued	2017-11-09  (November 9, 2017 (2017-11-09)) [±]
Preview release	none [±]
Written in	Java
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Laboratory informatics software
License(s)	GNU GPL v2
Website	github.com/hmsiccbl/screensaver1

Screensaver HTS LIMS was a free web-based open-source laboratory information management system (LIMS) developed by researchers at Harvard Medical School. The LIMS was primarily designed for high-throughput screening of small molecule and RNAi biological assays.

Product history

Screensaver HTS was created by Harvard "to address the informatics needs of our small molecule and RNAi screening facility." Development began on the idea in 2006 as a replacement to legacy systems at Harvard Medical School. John Sullivan and Andrew Tolopko were the primary authors for the first several years of the project.

Version 1.0 of the software appeared in 2007 and was implemented as a replacement to a previous system that shared the same name. In July 2008, version 1.7 was released internally, adding functionality from yet another legacy system, and thus replacing it. Additional iterations of the software arrived (as local open-source) up to version 1.7.4. On April 4, 2008, John Sullivan left the project, with Sean Sullivan coming on as a supporting developer in November 2008.

On April 29, 2008, a SourceForge project was started, and a little over a year later, the first public open-source version was made available as version 2009.09.16. Since then work has continued on the project, with releases arriving in 2010 and again in early 2012. On January 17, 2012, Tolopko left his position with Harvard's ICCB-Longwood program, and with it his role as lead developer of Screensaver.

On December 1, 2018, ICCB-Longwood declared end-of-life for the Screensaver software, mentioning a "screensaver2 repository for ongoing development of LIMS software at the ICCB-L." That screensaver2 repository doesn't exist as of May 2019. It's not clear if ICCB-Longwood is openly working on an open-source Screensaver HTS replacement.

Features

A list of features can be found on the Screensaver wiki.

Hardware/software requirements

Hardware and software requirements as well as installation help can be found in the installation guide.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

A demo of the software can be arranged by sending an e-mail to screensaver-feedback@hms.harvard.edu.

Entities using Screensaver HTS LIMS

Entities that used Screensaver included:

• Cellular Screening Center at the Institute for Genomics & Systems Biology, University of Chicago
• Fox Chase Cancer Center
• ICCB-Longwood/NSRB, Harvard Medical School
• Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology and Bioinformatics Institute
• Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
• The Netherlands Cancer Institute

Further reading

• "Screensaver HTS LIMS Wiki". Harvard Medical School. https://wiki.med.harvard.edu/ICCBL/Screensaver/. 

• Tolopko, Andrew N.; John P. Sullivan; Sean D. Erickson; David Wrobel; Su L. Chiang; Katrina Rudnicki; Stewart Rudnicki; Jennifer Nale; Laura M. Selfors; Dara Greenhouse; Jeremy L Muhlich; Caroline E. Shamu (2010). "Screensaver: an open source lab information management system (LIMS) for high throughput screening facilities". BMC Bioinformatics 11: 260. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-11-260. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/11/260. 

External links

• Screensaver HTS LIMS on GitHub (Archived)
• The ICCB-Longwood Investigator Initiated Screening Program