Today we are proud to announce the general availability of version 5.0.0 for all PyRAT products.

This release is a monumental step towards a new and improved PyRAT experience. Most noticeable are the changes to the interface. As some may recall, PyRAT version 1.0 came out in 2003, just over 20 years ago! Over the years, more features were added and the look updated over time, but the general layout remained the same.

Until now.

We asked ourselves, “If we were to recreate PyRAT today with all of its current functionality, what would that look like?”

And then we built it:

• Tabs at the top have been replaced with a menu to the left organized in an easier to navigate hierarchical structure
• Frequently used functions were moved to the top navigation level to be more accessible
• The menu is collapsible to provide a larger workspace
• The color scheme has been changed to increase contrast, providing a cleaner, easier-to-read interface
• And through a year of internal testing, a myriad of tweaks have been implemented that enhance the overall look, feel, and usability

Below the surface, we have also made massive changes:

• Accessibility via screen readers has been increased. We have redesigned how pages are laid out, removing unnecessary tables, and we have audited the interface to ensure labeling for the reader
• The technologies used in the interface as well as the backend technologies have been modernized. This ensures compatibility with future browsers and enables better browser interactions, particularly in regards to browser history and tabs
• A lot of business logic has been refactored. This has resulted in many pages being much faster than before
• A new monitoring system has been added in order to find and fix problems faster

In addition to these changes, we still managed to implement user requests in PyRAT, PyRAT Transgenic, and PyRAT Aquatic such as:

• More configuration options
• More forms of automated emails
• More and extended filter options, as well as additional selectable columns in various lists and reports
• And a whole lot more

Current customers who want to learn more or are interested in an update, feel free to contact your PyRAT customer representative.

For anyone who has not yet experienced PyRAT, now is a good time.

Click here to contact us for an obligation-free demo installation.

As part of our commitment to quality, we use an ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS), which provides controlled processes for how we do our work. We are very happy to announce that our QMS has undergone a thorough audit and has consequently been re-certified for another 3 years!

A big thanks goes out to those in Scionics who worked hard to make this happen.

Click here to learn more

For the last few weeks we have been rolling out PyRAT 4.6.1 with great success and are now announcing it is generally available to all clients. The latest PyRAT Transgenic and PyRAT Aquatic are also ready, with Aquatic in particular seeing some important and useful additions and refinements.

If you are a current customer and have not been updated recently or are excited to try the latest version, please contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

Here is a very brief summary of some of the improvements we have made in the new releases:

PyRAT and PyRAT Transgenic 4.6.1:

• Enhanced well plates management with graphical overview
• New selectable columns and filter criteria in lists and reports
• Additional API endpoints

PyRAT Aquatic 4.6:

• Work on subtanks from the tank details
• New selectable columns in tank and crossing lists
• Our API is now available

And as usual, plenty of new configuration options and email notifications for all our products.

We are now announcing the general release of the latest version of our PyRAT products. The first clients were installed in December with much success. These releases contain new features and tweaks as requested by our user base.

If you are a current customer and have not yet been updated, feel free to contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

Here is a very brief summary of some of the improvements we have made in the new releases:

PyRAT and PyRAT Transgenic 4.6:

• Expanded functionality of external order requests including, vendor catalogs and budgeting
• Enhanced breeding performance report
• New selectable columns and filter criteria in lists and reports

PyRAT Aquatic 4.6:

• Change age levels automatically
• Upload documents to tanks

And many new configuration options for all PyRAT products.

We are pleased to announce the latest release of our PyRAT products.

As usual, this release contains numerous new features and enhancements. Thanks to all of our customers for providing feedback and helping to make PyRAT better for everyone.

Here are a few of the improvements in the new release:

PyRAT 4.5.1:

• New platform for shared animals and pups
• Public colors for animals, pups and cages are assignable
• New QS actions for animals and cages
• New property "Competent to train" for users who are assigned to a competence

PyRAT Aquatic 4.5.1:

• Procedures can be assigned to groups of animals
• Public colors for tanks are assignable
• Extended reporting capabilities

And for all PyRAT products including PyRAT Transgenic:

• Public colors for lines/strains are assignable
• More filter functions and configuration capabilities

If you are a current customer and have not yet been updated, please feel free to contact us to schedule an update.

For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

We are proud to announce new version releases for our PyRAT line of products, which we are now rolling out to clients. This is our second major release this year, with our previous occurring in February. These releases contain the most requested new features, tweaks, and optimisations.

If you are a current customer and have not yet been updated, feel free to contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

Here is a brief summary of some of the improvements we have made in the new releases:

PyRAT 4.5:

• New score sheet functionality for experiments
• Well plate management (for genotyping samples)
• Multiple conditions can now be assigned to animals
• Cage map improvements, including showing racks from different rooms at the same time

PyRAT Aquatic 1.5:

• New tank pedigree feature
• Multiple conditions can now be assigned to tanks
• Tank map improvements, including showing racks from different rooms at the same time

And for all PyRAT products including PyRAT Transgenic:

• Individual colors for lines/strains are now assignable
• New feature for attaching documents to work requests and projects
• More filter functions
• More configuration capabilities

In February, we started rolling out the latest releases of our PyRAT products. As usual, the new versions incorporate features and improvements suggested by our clients, and those changes were developed in accordance to our ISO 9001:2015 certified Quality Management System (QMS).

While the number of additions and improvements greatly exceeds this list, here is a brief summary of what we managed to accomplish since our last release in September:

PyRAT 4.4.1:

• Schedule recurrent work and order requests
• Document the application of multiple procedures at once
• Schedule upcoming refresher courses for trainings

PyRAT Aquatic 1.4.1:

• New summary tab containing important information for each tank
• Set colors to tanks based on ID
• Schedule recurrent work requests

And for all PyRAT products including PyRAT Transgenic:

• Server status dashboard feature for facility leaders and others with administrator rights
• Extended filter capabilities
• More configuration capabilities

As always, if you are a current customer, feel free to contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

As part of our commitment to quality, we use an ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS), which provides controlled processes for how we do our work. We are very happy to announce that our QMS has undergone a thorough audit and has consequently been re-certified for another 3 years!

A big thanks goes out to those in Scionics who worked hard to make this happen, particularly during this ongoing pandemic.

Click here to learn more

As per our usual rigorous release cycle, we have another round of products available. Many thanks to our clients for their feedback. Keep it coming!

Here is a very brief summary of the new features available:

PyRAT 4.4:

• Weight data import from csv files
• Refactored procedure management
• API Refactoring
• Extended filtering functionalities
• More columns for searching and sorting, improved user friendliness

PyRAT Aquatic 1.4:

• Graphical line/strain pedigree
• Repeat crossings
• Optimised interface based on feedback

And for all PyRAT products we have also implemented the following:

• Extended projects functionality
• Two factor authentication
• Scheduled report function
• Data archival feature

As always, if you are a current customer, feel free to contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

As the world knows, everyday life has changed since the advent of the Covid-19 virus, and that has also been true for those of us at Scionics. We thought it a good idea to give an update on what we have been doing since this epidemic started affecting all of our lives.

Scionics made the decision, as of mid-March, to send all employees into home office. As we had flexible communication and management systems in place, technologically this was an easy transition. More difficult was adjusting our work habits and practices. Without a shared hallway to walk through or a coffee machine to gather around for impromptu meetings, people have had to be more pro-active and organized about information exchange. Psychologically it is also clear that we miss brainstorming ideas with each other or talking about current events over lunch. We definitely miss each other’s company. Like many, we’ve found that chat systems, videoconferencing, and telephone calls are, in some cases, a poor substitute for seeing your colleagues.

We’ve had the good fortune that no one has been ill and, in fact, working from home has been highly effective. We have made some very large strides in the last few months with our latest PyRAT products release. It’s a big one, and everything went as planned.

In addition, we are hiring! Please see our jobs page for more information.

We would like to thank those who’ve worked on the front lines in regards to this illness - all of the doctors, nurses, and various other health practitioners. Your dedication has kept this virus under control and we are in your debt. For our part, Scionics hopes that our efforts to support biomedical science with IT solutions aids in the understanding of biological systems and the discovery of cures and therapies for this and other diseases.

While it’s true we have avoided the office since mid-March, we have all been diligently working from home. The result has been the release in May of new versions of PyRAT, PyRAT Aquatic, and PyRAT Transgenic edition. For these releases, we moved the entire code base forward from Python 2 to Python 3, which was quite a challenge. It required a significant code rewrite but resulted in a modernized product codebase.

Thanks to careful planning and testing by our team and in accordance with the SOPs in our ISO 9001 certified Quality Management System, we can proudly say that we have not experienced any major problems since the changeover. In fact, many of our clients, some of them large research institutions with hundreds of users, have been using the system for weeks now. On top of this success, we met our goal of finishing this release in Spring.

Besides the Python code migration, we have added a number of new features to our PyRAT products. A very brief summary of some of those can be found below:

PyRAT 4.3:

• Cohort management
• Improvements to the work request, budgeting, and training records systems
• Weight functionality for pups
• Cage map improvements, includes the ability to swap cages, highlight cages with sick animals or in open work requests

PyRAT Aquatic 1.3:

• Full license management system
• Tank map improvements, includes the ability to swap tanks, highlight tanks in open work requests

PyRAT Transgenic edition:

• Extended transfer report

As always, if you are a current customer, feel free to contact your customer representative and ask for an update. For anyone who would like a demo installation to try out any of our PyRAT products, please click here to contact us.

We're very pleased to announce the v4.2 release of PyRAT! This version not only includes many refinements, but also new features, such as:

• New training and competence records
• New workflow and new form for ordering animals
• Newly refactored authorisation management, now with a more user friendly, configurable interface and extended functionality
• New language: Swedish!

The new version is now available. Please feel free to contact us for an update or, if you don't know PyRAT yet, for access to a demo installation.

Good news, PyRAT version 4.1 is finally here! This version includes a large number of small tweaks as per our user feedback, but the largest new features include:

• A new graphical rack display for location management
• A new severity assessment system for genetically modified lines

Please feel free to contact us for more information.

We are pleased to announce the release of v1.1 of PyRAT Aquatic, our software for the management of fish colonies. The initial release provided us with valuable feedback (thank you!), which we incorporated into our plan for this version. With this release, we not only refine many of the previous features, but we also add some new ones, including:

• A new work request system for communication between scientists and caretakers
• A graphical rack display for viewing the positions of tanks
• Barcode and label functionality for the identification of tanks
• And many small tweaks per user requests

Click here to learn more

We are proud to announce the release of PyRAT Aquatic, our new software product designed for managing fish and other tank-based colonies. PyRAT Aquatic has many of the same features as PyRAT for terrestrial animals, but redesigned for fish facility workflows and biology.

This product was made using the same ISO 9001:2015 certified Quality Management System as PyRAT.

Click here to learn more

After years of evolving and improving our product development and related processes, we decided to go the distance and prepare for ISO certification. With the guidance of an ISO 9001 expert, we improved our quality management system to the point that we thought it could pass an official ISO certification evaluation.

Well, now it is official! We are ISO 9001:2015 certified!

This certification is one more example of our commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.

Click here to learn more

We have been working hard on this release all year, and it is a big update. Many thanks to everyone at Scionics who made this release possible.

Any clients who do not yet have this release should contact us for an update.

A very limited selection of the new features are listed below:

• New Layout

Modern and more powerful new user interface

• Filter preset saving

Name, save, and reuse your favorite filters

• New pedigree reports

Configurable graphical pedigrees for individual animals or lines/strains

• Extended list coloring

Animals and cages can be colored individually and independently of other color rules

• Extension of special services

- Categorization (e.g. drugs, consumables, work)
- Create order for billing purposes to skip ordering process when necessary
- Budgeting based on authorization

Scionics sponsored and helped organize a hands-on course to teach the fundamentals of deep learning with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN).

Nico Hoffman (Uniklinikum Dresden) and Kashif Rasul (Zalando/Freie Universität Berlin) where the events' instructors.

Know more about on the GCOE site.

What's New?

• Easily generate EU statistical reports on the use of your animals in one click.
• SOPs and any other documents can now be uploaded and shared, improving collaboration within your team, making sure everyone stays on the same page.
• Having problems with finding what you need in the order request list? A new menu has been added, allowing you to set up columns any way you want.
• PyRAT Transgenic - The Transgenic extension now supports sperm management, allowing you to import, isolate, freeze, and revitilize sperm. In addition to isolating and importing embryos, you can generate embryos in PyRAT by fertilizing oocytes and sperm, all in once place.

What's New?

• Import genotyping results with the click of a button.

A new menu allows CSV files and Transnetyx's XML files with genotyping data to be imported directly into PyRAT. Mutations and genotyping results of multiple animals can easily be added and modified.

• Even more genotyping sticker templates are available.
• More columns and filter options, letting you customize tables and reports however you like.
• PyRAT Transgenic - We've made further enhancements to Transgenic and integrated it even more into PyRAT. New Quick Select options for embryo isolation, embryo transfer, and accomplishing tasks with transferred embryos ease your overall workload.