Verbex, a new iOS app for bench scientists, has launched to help researchers capture experimental notes by voice and turn them into structured, ELN-ready records.
Verbex was built around a common documentation challenge in research labs: having an electronic lab notebook does not automatically mean having a faithful record. While ELNs are becoming an increasingly important part of the life sciences informatics stack, scientists still often reconstruct experiments after the fact from memory, scattered notes, and partial observations.
Verbex is designed to improve the input layer of lab documentation. Scientists can speak experimental steps, observations, materials, and conclusions into the app while work is happening or during natural pauses in the workflow. Verbex transcribes the notes, organizes them by ELN-style sections, and prepares a draft that can be reviewed, edited, completed, and exported.
“Writing extremely contemporaneous electronic lab notebook entries is one of the most onerous parts of bench science,” said Deep Majithia, founder of Verbex. “I built Verbex because I wanted a tool that could act like a live personal lab note taker: something that helps capture the experiment as it is happening, while still leaving the scientist in control of the final record.”
Verbex emphasizes privacy-first, on-device processing. The app is designed without cloud servers, allowing scientists to document experiments while keeping records local to their device. It also supports photo-based capture for materials and handwritten notes, helping reduce tedious manual entry for details such as reagent labels, catalog numbers, lot numbers, and expiration dates.
“Having an ELN does not automatically mean having a faithful record,” Majithia added. “A lab can standardize on better documentation infrastructure and still end up with weak records if scientists are reconstructing experiments later. I genuinely believe better documentation leads to better discovery, and Verbex is built to make contemporaneous records easier for scientists.”
Key features include:
- Voice-based experiment note capture
- ELN-style section organization
- On-device transcription and processing
- Review and edit workflow before completion
- Photo-based support for reagent labels and written notes
- Source-faithful structured drafts
- Completed-record export
Verbex is available now for iOS.