Why LabVantage wants researchers to have conversations with their data

Imagine a research world where laboratory scientists don’t just analyze their data; they talk directly to it, and it talks back. That’s a reality that the Somerset, New Jersey–based laboratory information management system (LIMS) provider LabVantage is working toward.

The company’s latest LIMS platform, version 8.9, layers semantic search onto complex data sets, allowing scientists to pose natural-language questions across disparate sources—whether brain scans, chemical analyses, or research papers—and quickly receive actionable insights.

“Our CEO now asks customers, ‘Are you talking to your data?'” explained a LabVantage representative at the company’s booth at PittCon 2025. “If your company isn’t talking to its data by now, you have to catch up.”

Similar ideas are percolating in the IT landscape. Snowflake, for instance, describes a new era of AI-driven data analytics where users can “talk to [their] data.” In LabVantage’s case, the company has a vision for what it dubs “SaaS 2.0” or “Services-as-a-Software.” The model extends beyond traditional laboratory software to encompass the laboratory team itself.

“We’re becoming part of and we’re putting services into the software, or part of the whole subscription process,” said Alan Marcus, Chief Growth Officer at LabVantage. “We’re not just a software vendor, and we’re giving them all the capabilities they need to actually grow in their lab and keep it up to date, validation training in other areas.”

Toward reproducable science

LabVantage says the approach also addresses a persistent problem in scientific research—the reproducibility crisis—by capturing comprehensive metadata and making all experimental parameters searchable.

“I actually had experience with this at a customer where I implemented LabVantage,” noted Denise Bell, Director of Product Management. “Somebody would do something, it would sit on their hard drive, or was in a paper note. Everybody forgot it, and so they repeated it over and over again. By standardizing templates within our electronic laboratory notebook, you’re now capturing all that data, all that metadata… and it’s all there and searchable.”

One technology that can help make that dream a reality is semantic search. LabVantage’s 8.9 software uses semantic search to enable researchers to ask practical questions like, “I’m trying to make a formula of paint with a shiny gloss. What have I used in the past that gave this kind of result for this test method?” The approach eliminates reliance on institutional knowledge that might disappear when researchers leave.

“You can start to return those results so you’re no longer searching,” Bell continued. “You’re no longer going, ‘Hey, Bob, what did you use?'” referring to a hypothetical colleague who tends to keep valuable research data only on his laptop. By contrast, software like 8.9 centralizes all experimental data with standardized templates and makes it fully searchable through semantic queries. “It’s now really data-driven to actually get you to the result quicker, faster, which means you get your product out to market faster.”

Connecting the data dots

The company also has alliances with AWS and Azure cloud services. “We mostly partner with AWS, but our clients actually do Azure as well,” explained Bell. “We can be more cloud agnostic,” added Marcus.

LabVantage has an expanding partnership with SAP related to quality management and product lifecycle management. “We’ve done an integration to their quality module,” Marcus said. “A lot of our laboratories have QA which are using the quality module from within SAP.”

As laboratories increasingly move toward automation, LabVantage positions its 8.9 platform as ready to support even the most ambitious visions, including the concept of “dark labs”—fully automated laboratory environments where human intervention is minimal.

“In practical use, there’s a lot of that, like we see that in drug discovery, with liquid handlers and robotic systems,” Marcus explained. “I am working with one client, and basically it’s a lab in a box. The sample goes in one end, and there’s all kinds of robotics and sample handlers doing prep, analysis, plating… the whole thing.”

When asked about the future of such automation, Marcus acknowledged the ambitious nature of fully automated “dark labs” but noted, “Some people are actively talking about it right now. They’re putting things in place that they’re gonna get to, and we’re a helpful part of that initiative.”

As a LabVantage spokesperson said during a booth visit, “We’re becoming part of the subscription process. We’re not just a software vendor—we’re providing all the capabilities needed to grow their lab and keep it updated.”