Better management of Western blotting results using professional photo management software

Western blotting is a proven technique essential to a significant proportion of molecular biology projects. However, as results accumulate over the years, managing data can become daunting. Recognizing that the needs of a scientist working with Western blotting results are conceptually the same as those of a professional photographer managing a summer's worth of wedding photos, we report here a new workflow for managing Western blotting results using professional photo management software. The workflow involves (i) scanning all film-based results; (ii) importing the scans into the software; (iii) processing the scans; (iv) tagging the files with metadata, and (v) creating appropriate "smart-albums." Advantages of this system include space savings (both on our hard drives and on our desks), safer archival, quicker access, and easier sharing of the results. In addition, metadata-based workflows improve cross-experiment discovery and enable questions like "show me all blots labelled with antibody X" or "show me all experiments featuring protein Y". As project size and breadth increase, workflows delegating results management to the computer will become more and more important so that scientists can keep focussing on science.