Miguel Barroso
Independent laboratory systems and operations consultant
Practical help with laboratory workflows, systems and automation.
I help clinical and diagnostic laboratories improve sample flow, introduce new methods and bring new services into routine use. My work connects the bench, the instruments, the LIMS and the quality system, so that changes work for the people running the laboratory.
I am Miguel Barroso, a licensed biomedical scientist with fifteen years of laboratory experience, including eleven years at Karolinska University Hospital and the technical build of ABC Labs’ toxicology service.
Six services
What I can help with
Most laboratory problems touch more than one of these. I work from the requisition to the retained sample, so the fix can land on whichever layer it belongs to: the process, the system, the method, the instrument or the automation.
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Laboratory workflow
Turnaround is slipping and nobody can say at which bench.
Sample reception, registration, batching and handoffs mapped as they run, with measured timings, and a prioritized list of changes the laboratory can make itself.
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LIMS requirements
The system and the bench disagree, and the workarounds have become the procedure.
Sample workflows turned into requirements your software team can build and your laboratory can test: registration, sample identity, worklists, instrument interfaces, exceptions and approval.
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Laboratory automation
A liquid handler stands in the room, or is about to be bought, and nobody is sure the workflow is ready for it.
Whether a workflow should be automated, the liquid-handling method when it should, and the barcodes, worklists and checks that let it run in routine. Hamilton STAR and VENUS first; when a carrier or rack does not exist for your tubes, I design and make it.
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Method validation
The method is ready for routine and the validation report is not.
Validation plans, data analysis and traceable reports, remotely, in English or Swedish. Fixed-scope packages from €900 per method, excluding VAT.
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ISO 15189 and quality systems
An assessment is booked and the records exist mostly on paper.
Procedures, validation records, QC, external quality assessment and traceability made to work in daily use, alongside your quality manager, before and between assessments.
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Laboratory commissioning
A new service, platform or laboratory has a go-live date and no single plan.
A new service, platform or laboratory brought into routine, accredited operation: sample flow, instruments, methods, LIMS requirements, procedures and training on one go-live plan. Instrument site preparation and the laboratory’s own commissioning sit here.
2 projects
Two projects, briefly
Whole-blood sample preparation on a liquid handler the laboratory already owned
Clinical pharmacology at Karolinska University Hospital had a Hamilton STARlet and five people preparing whole blood by hand for immunosuppressant and phosphatidylethanol analysis. Whole blood separates while it stands, so the deck was considered unable to handle it. I measured how long a sample stays mixed after agitation, showed that pipetting below the plasma layer reads the same as the mixed sample, and built the method around that window, with printed tube adapters so samples went on in the tubes they arrived in. One operator could then put through what five people had been preparing by hand, the laboratory’s own turnaround figures came back at about half, and no instrument was bought.
My role: developed the method and kept it in routine as the department’s main programmer. Results are for that workflow, in that laboratory. Presented as a poster at IATDMCT 2017.
ABC Labs: from covid testing to an accredited toxicology service
ABC Labs in Stockholm was a high-volume covid testing operation that had to become an accredited drugs-of-abuse laboratory. I was hired in November 2021 to run the technical side and lead a team of eight, most of them new to mass spectrometry. We wrote the sample flow first, then commissioned the mass spectrometers, developed and validated LC-MS/MS methods for urine, blood and oral fluid, and set up QC, external quality assessment, measurement uncertainty and the chain of custody. The scope, ISO 15189 for medical testing and EWDTS for workplace drug testing, was accredited in October 2023, 22 months from my first day, with the QA function alongside: Swedac 10532.
My role: technical lead, 2021 – 2024. Accreditation is won by the laboratory and QA together. The register publishes the current scope, so the October 2023 date is my own record.
3 steps
How an engagement runs
- UnderstandA free first conversation, by email or a call: what you want to improve, what is in place, and any deadline. I tell you what I would look at first. When the question needs a proper look, the next step is a paid review: a day or two with your operation, on site or over your documents and a video call, ending in a written proposal. I start by watching the workflow, not by proposing a solution.
- AgreeWhat will be produced, who does what on your side and mine, and a fixed quote in writing before anything starts. I sign your NDA and work under your document control, in your templates.
- DeliverDepending on the service: the specification, the method on the deck, the validation report, the procedures, the readiness review. Your team is involved throughout, so the work keeps running after I have handed it over.
Most of the work is done remotely; site time is for what cannot be done from a desk, and a longer on-site engagement is open for the right project. Engagements run from a couple of days to several months. Method validation is the one service with published fixed prices. The contracting entity, languages, confidentiality and the other commercial answers are on the contact page.
Licensed 2010
Who you would be working with
I am a licensed Swedish biomedical scientist, legitimerad biomedicinsk analytiker, licensed by Socialstyrelsen in 2010. Eleven years in clinical pharmacology at Karolinska University Hospital, across its therapeutic drug monitoring, drugs-of-abuse and doping control laboratories; in 2016, Hamilton Nordic’s application specialist, on the vendor’s side of the same robots; then technical lead at ABC Labs from 2021 to 2024. Three peer-reviewed papers in dried blood spot analysis, first author on one.
I now work independently through my own firm, Ebihara Solutions, mostly remotely from Japan, with a home in Stockholm. The work is offered to laboratories in Sweden and the rest of Europe, where my record is, and across the Asia-Pacific on the same terms. I do not represent an instrument platform or a laboratory group; the one commercial referral I have is disclosed on the LIMS requirements page.
Miguel was hired in November 2021 to transit the ABC laboratory from molecular biology and covid testing to LC-MS and toxicology testing. He was responsible to set up the machine park of mass spectrometers, conduct validations, write standard operating procedures and teach technicians to run LC-MS.
Prof. Ola Winqvist, MD PhD · Medical Director, ABC Labs · letter of support, Stockholm, 18 November 2024
The license, the dated roles, the papers and the languages are on the about page; the projects in detail are under selected work.
First step
Tell me what your laboratory needs
A few lines are enough: what you want to improve, what is in place, and any deadline. I will reply with the questions I need to understand the work and suggest a useful next step. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing. The terms, travel and the other commercial answers are on the contact page. If you would rather not use a form, write to [email protected].
Contracting
- Consulting delivered through Ebihara Solutions (Sweden), a sole trader approved for F-skatt; organization and VAT numbers on every invoice.
- Your NDA signed and your document control followed; no professional indemnity insurance; laboratories in Sweden, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.