The present invention is related to databases and the exchange of scientific information. Specifically the invention discloses a laboratory data management system including a knowledge base that stores characteristics of laboratory reagents, experiment subjects, tissues and cells. The invention also includes an experiment input module that accepts input of parameters of an experiment and data from a knowledge base module. Further, the invention includes a protocol creator connected to the knowledge base module and the experiment input module that creates a laboratory protocol for an experiment based on data supplied from the knowledge base module and the experiment input module. The invention also includes methods to use the described system.