Verdant Lab

Tissue culture propagation involves multi-stage tracking with deeply hierarchical data — a mother plant produces explants, which produce subcultures, which produce further divisions across different growth media. Researchers tracking this in lab notebooks lose visibility into contamination patterns and lineage history. Enterprise LIMS solutions exist but start at $10k+, putting them out of reach for independent researchers and small-scale propagators.

Building on HydroMate's proven architecture, I designed recursive data structures capable of representing 5+ levels of lineage tracking. The core challenge was mobile-optimized visualization of tree structures — making deeply nested parent-child relationships navigable on a phone screen without losing context. Medium formulation tracking required precise numeric inputs for nutrient concentrations and growth regulators while remaining fast enough for lab use with gloved hands.

Closed testing with 3 users validated the approach immediately. The contamination analytics feature revealed patterns that were never visible in paper notebooks — correlations between specific media formulations, source species, and contamination rates that allowed users to adjust protocols proactively. This confirmed that reusable architectures designed for inventory tracking can successfully extend into complex biological research domains. Validating that the interaction language translates across domains--from hydroponic monitoring to tissue culture tracking--confirmed our recursive data model approach.