HEnRY: a DZIF LIMS tool for the collection and documentation of biomaterials in multicentre studies

Well-characterized biomaterials of high quality have great potential for acceleration and quality improvement in translational biomedical research. To improve accessibility of local sample collections, efforts have been made to create central biomaterial banks and catalogues. Available technical solutions for creating professional local sample catalogues and connecting them to central systems are cost intensive and/or technically complex to implement. Therefore, the Translational Thematic Unit HIV of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) developed a Laboratory Information and Management System (LIMS) called HIV Engaged Research Technology (HEnRY) for implementation into the Translational Platform HIV (TP-HIV) at the DZIF and other research networks. HEnRY is developed at the University Hospital of Cologne. It is an advanced LIMS to manage processing and storage of samples and aliquots of different sample types. Features include: In summary, HEnRY offers all features necessary for a LIMS software. In addition, the structure of HEnRY provides sufficient flexibility to allow the implementation in other research areas. HEnRY is a free biobanking tool published under the MIT license. While it was developed to support HIV research in Germany, the feature set and language options, allow much broader applications and make this a powerful free research tool.