“SciSure has been an indispensable part of the Fugolin Lab since day one. Its intuitive design and integration of data, protocols, and inventory have completely transformed how we operate, making our research more organized, reproducible, and efficient. As a PI, I appreciate how it streamlines onboarding and ensures that every trainee, regardless of experience level, follows consistent and standardized workflows. SciSure has truly elevated the way our team collaborates and conducts science.”

- Ana Paula Piovezan Fugolin, DDS, MS, PhD, Associate Professor – Oregon Health & Science University School of Dentistry PI – Fugolin Lab

About OHSU and the Fugolin Lab

Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) is a leading public institution with approximately 1,250 principal investigators advancing research alongside healthcare delivery and education across the Pacific Northwest.

Within OHSU’s School of Dentistry, the Fugolin Lab conducts multidisciplinary research focused on the design, synthesis, and characterization of self-healing biomaterials and stimuli-responsive nanoplatforms for targeted therapeutic delivery to treat oral inflammatory diseases.

Building a foundation for organized, reproducible research

For the Fugolin Lab, research is more than a series of experiments — it is a mission that connects discovery, education, and community impact.

The lab brings together expertise across biotechnology, chemistry, immunology, pharmacology, materials science, and dentistry. Working within the Robertson Life Sciences Building, the team operates in a highly collaborative environment spanning both basic and clinical sciences.

Supporting this type of multidisciplinary research requires more than scientific expertise. It depends on systems that ensure consistency, traceability, and reproducibility across a growing and evolving team.

For Ana Paula Piovezan Fugolin, DDS, MS, PhD, that need was clear from the start. When she founded the lab, SciSure was implemented immediately — there was never a Fugolin Lab without it.

The challenge: Inconsistent documentation and limited traceability

That decision was shaped by prior experience.

Before launching her own lab, Dr. Fugolin worked in environments that relied on analog lab notebooks within high-rotation teams. While functional, those systems depended heavily on individual organization, with no standardized way to document or track experiments.

In labs with frequent turnover, tracing experimental conditions, material batches, and results was often difficult. Information was not always recorded consistently, making it harder to reproduce work or build on previous findings.

This highlighted the need for a structured, digital system from day one.

The Solution: A connected and standardized lab environment

Today, the Fugolin Lab includes postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, dental students, and research staff. In a training-rich, multidisciplinary environment, consistency and accessibility are critical.

SciSure has become the backbone of the lab’s operations.

Experimental data is centralized and structured, allowing protocols, chemical batches, images, and results to be linked within a single system. This eliminates the need for handwritten records or scattered files, making information easier to access, understand, and trace.

The result is a more connected and efficient way of working across the entire team.

Improving Consistency Across Workflows

SciSure has also helped standardize how experiments are performed.

Protocols are pulled from a centralized library, ensuring that all researchers work from the same version. In an academic setting where knowledge is often passed down informally, this prevents procedural drift and helps maintain reproducibility over time.

That consistency extends to inventory management as well. Reagents, chemical batches, and consumables are tracked in a centralized system, making it easier to manage ordering, monitor expiration dates, and understand usage.

According to Dr. Fugolin, this has reduced waste and improved overall efficiency.

The Result: Greater Traceability, Efficiency, and Collaboration

For the Fugolin Lab, the value of SciSure comes from how these elements work together.

By linking experimental data, protocols, and inventory, the lab can more easily trace the full history of each experiment, understand results in context, and identify sources of variability when troubleshooting.

This level of traceability is especially important in a multidisciplinary, training-focused environment where reliable records support both research quality and continuity.

SciSure has also improved collaboration. New trainees can get up to speed quickly because information is structured and accessible. Team members can clearly see what has been done, by whom, and how, without relying on inconsistent documentation or verbal handoffs.

Overall, the lab operates with greater organization, efficiency, and reproducibility — saving time while reducing confusion.

Supporting Research, Training, and Broader Impact

For Dr. Fugolin, these operational improvements support a broader mission.

Research in the lab is not only about discovery, but also about training the next generation of scientists, supporting clinicians, and contributing to improved patient outcomes. Structured systems make it easier for trainees to learn, for teams to collaborate, and for research to translate more effectively beyond the lab.

In this way, organization and traceability are not separate from the mission — they are part of what makes it possible.

Looking Ahead

As the Fugolin Lab continues to grow, the team plans to expand its use of SciSure in several areas:

• Integrating more automated workflows
• Further customizing experiment templates
• Expanding inventory tracking to include equipment maintenance and shared facility usage
• Onboarding clinical collaborators to streamline sample tracking and data sharing

These efforts will help the lab maintain a fully organized, efficient, and traceable research environment as projects scale.