Nolims – A lightweight flat-file based LIMS-like system

Nolims is a lightweight system for keeping track of samples in high-throughput molecular biology experiments. More speicifically it is made with the intention of keeping track of samples in microarray and DNA/RNA sequencing experiments at the NTNU Genomics Core Facility.

Compared to regular LIMS systems, nolims' aims are different:

• Lightweight. Text files are used where possible, and file formats are simple enough to be easily used from any programming language.
• Projects are self-contained. Bioinformatic projecs are often shared between people at multiple universities and sites.
• Flexible. In a core facility, projects differ quite a bit compared to more focused single-purpose labs or labs belonging to a single project or research gruop. The system needs to be flexible enough to cope with these differences (including e.g. time series cell line experiments with multiple experimental factors, full-DNA resequencing, metagenomics, ChIP-seq, …)
• Git-compatible. Not a feature of nolims itself, but it should not put any obstacles in the way for managing, exchanging and patching projects through git changesets.