Recent advances in tools for scientific data acquisition, visualization, and analysis have lead to growing information management problems for medical research laboratories. An exponential increase in the volume of data, combined with a proliferation of heterogeneous formats and autonomous systems, has driven the need for flexible and powerful Experiment Management Systems (EMS). This paper provides a detailed analysis of the informatics requirements of an EMS, and proposes a new type of middleware called an EMS-Building Environment (EMSBE), which enables the rapid development of web-based systems for managing laboratory data and workflow. We describe the Web-Interfacing Respository Manager (WIRM), an open-source application server for building customizable experiment management systems. WIRM is being used to manage several ongoing experiments, including a natural language processor of radiological findings, and an interdisciplinary project for studying brain function.
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