Cell Signaling Technology
Switching an Entire Company to Macs
Merberg also works to maximize the value of the company’s business information. “We need to be able to generate reports that tell us which products are doing best,” he says. “We want office automation tools that minimize mindless busy work and maximize the ability of people to use their talents for understanding the business.”
Merberg, who has often used Macs in his long history in biotechnology and informatics, was glad to see Macs on board when he joined CST.
“I was a little bit skeptical about running the entire business on Macs,” he confesses. “But since then I’ve come to appreciate my Mac on the scientific side, because the wealth of open-source software is very enabling both to scientists and to developers.
“Even the folks who wanted to switch back to a PC for a while began to appreciate the platform. They’ve even come to me and said ‘I’m thinking about buying a Mac for home.’”
“Sometimes our business people are working with systems they’re not used to, but they’re managing just fine. I think that as the years go on, we’ll probably view CST’s decision to base its infrastructure on Macs as a bold move that really paid off.”
Switching from Windows
Most of CST’s business involves producing reagents. But one part of the business, headed by Dr. John Rush, Director of Protein Chemistry, develops new technologies that identify phosphorylation sites in cells. These are the sites that control the vast majority of cellular processes.
“When we switched over from the Windows system to Macs, it came at a critical time in the discovery work we’re doing,” says Rush of the 10 research scientists and lab technicians on his team. “We had started to find lots of new phosphorylation sites and we had to decide how to keep track of all that information.”
Immunohistochemical/immunofluorescent analysis of paraffin-embedded human tonsil, using Zap-70 (99F2) Rabbit Monoclonal Antibody #2705 (right), and using Zap-70 (99F2) Rabbit Monoclonal Antibody #2705 preincubated with Zap-70 Blocking Peptide (left)
Streamlining Data Acquisition
Rush wrote a custom database in FileMaker Pro, as well as a Perl script, which “reads through each experiment file and pulls out all the relevant data we want to put into the database,” he explains.
Instead of manually going through one sample after another in an HTML table and trying to make the connections between samples, he and his team can rely on the database to make the connections and help them draw better conclusions.
“Being able to move files from the data acquisition computers onto our desktop Macs, run the Perl script and import the results into the FileMaker database is very helpful to us,” says Rush.
System Configuration Made Easy
During the transition, Del Castillo provided tutorials and took advantage of the Mac’s cloning capability to configure each system to the needs of each user.
“Macs allow you to copy the entire drive and then duplicate that copy onto another system,” Del Castillo explains. “That made the installation go very smoothly. We created a master image of how we wanted the system to look, and when we’d get in a new system, we’d just modify it for the user.”
“Most people are very happy with the switch,” says Del Castillo. “Even the folks who wanted to switch back to a PC for a while began to appreciate the platform. They’ve even come to me and said ‘I’m thinking about buying a Mac for home.’”
