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One of the best ways to streamline your research process is to have a well-organized management system for your abstract entities (designs, DNA sequences) and your physical entities (DNA parts on plates, reagents). For this purpose, TeselaGen’s software offers a Material Registry to keep track of the materials used in the R&D process.
Overview of the Materials Registry
You can find the Material Registry on the left panel. As said above, this registry links your abstract or theoretical data with your physical inventory.
Since this toolkit assumes your abstract entry is now a physical one, you must keep in mind that it’s not possible to change the theoretical information once it’s linked to a physical material. The entries allowed in this toolkit are DNA, RNA, protein, genomic, microbial materials, cell cultures, and reagents.
All materials libraries have the typical library view. However, you have different data associated with all of them. Next, we’ll briefly explain the features you can associate with each one.
Registering Materials
Each material library has the typical library view (the displayed information may change depending on the material type):
To create a new entry, you can upload a new material by clicking on the “New” icon, or using the “Upload” option to bulk-import entries. Here, you must know that:
You can create materials of already existing abstract entities and link them. However, if there is already a material linked, you won’t be able to add a second one.
In some cases, you can create a new material even if you don’t have a previously registered abstract entry, however, it will automatically create a new one. For example, you can create a new DNA material with a new sequence, creating a new entry in your DNA sequences library.
In some other cases (i.e. protein materials) you must be sure to have the linked entry in your library (on this case, amino acid sequence).
Remember that you can download the template files to upload a set of materials in bulk by placing the cursor on the accepted formats shown when you click “Upload”.
Materials Information
When opening a material you can see the general information associated with a it (type, size, molecular weight, etc.).
In addition, to manage your physical entity you can specify:
Internal and external availability
Associated aliquots
Import collection: includes details of the import (in the case of a bulk import, you can see the date and other materials belonging to the same “collection”).
Material/design lineage
Extended properties and external identifiers: You can add additional information about your material and identifiers to, for example, export to a specific database.
Creating Aliquots
It is possible to create an aliquot associated with a material. To do it, select “create aliquot” and fill in the required information.
Types of Materials
All materials will display general information when opening them, such as name, type, external availability, length, molecular weight, sequence (or abstract entity) associated, etc. Depending on the material type, this information may vary slightly; the general view of a material’s information looks like this:
The types of materials available are:
DNA materials
RNA materials
Protein materials
Genomic materials
Microbial materials
Cell cultures
Reagents