Commercialization of SciDAP, a next generation universal platform for collaborative data analysis

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Summary The recent proliferation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) - based methods for the analysis of gene expression, chromatin structure and protein-DNA interactions has created tremendous opportunities for gaining novel insights into basic biology, health, and disease. However, analysis of the resulting data requires computational expertise that many traditional biologists do not possess. Hence, when dealing with genomics data, majority of biologists require the help of bioinformaticians even for simple tasks. This places these exciting methods beyond the reach of the majority of life scientists. This proposal from DATIRIUM, LLC, a start-up company from Cincinnati, OH describes a plan to create SciDAP (Scientific Data Analysis Platform), a novel multi-omics user-friendly data analysis platform to allow biologists to analyze the data themselves and to enable collaboration between biologists and bioinformaticians. We hypothesize that we can create a data analysis platform that is both universal and user-friendly by including interface instructions into computational pipelines itself. Platform will use these instructions to create a graphical interface for users. Specifically, we are using containerized pipelines developed using Common Workflow Language (CWL). CWL allows to describe tools, pipelines and computational environment making these pipelines both portable and reproducible. On top of CWL, Datirium developed a system of CWL extensions that allows to describe the inputs and outputs visualizations within the CWL workflows. Importantly, our platform will increase the rigor of computational analysis by (i) making the analysis reproducible and auditable by bioinformaticians due to CWL pipeline portability and recording each step of the analysis as Research Objects; (ii) enabling collaboration between experimentalists and computational biologists by providing bioinformaticians with a way to direct analysis flow and biologists with the convenience of GUI; (iii) Including out of the box pipelines with optimized parameters and actionable QC metrics that flag possible issues. In the first aim of this proposal, we will create a prototype of the platform. In the second aim, we will conduct usability testing with bioinformaticians and experimentalists to test whether our platform can accommodate diverse types of the analysis in a user-friendly fashion. Specifically, in collaboration with Dr. Salomonis at CCHMC, we will test how easy it is to integrate two existing analysis routines into SciDAP: BS-Seq DNA- methylation and scRNA-Seq; then we will work with biologists to ensure that the resulting interface is both user- friendly and enables collaboration with bioinformaticians. In this iCorps supplement, Datirium recruited Amy Duncan, MBA, a commercialization expert specializing in launch of research products to work with us on developing a a comprehensive, effective, and multi-faceted commercialization and launch plan. Specifically, we hope to gain the skills and information necessary to thoroughly understand our varied groups of potential customers and partners and to validate (or modify) our business model and technical solutions. To this end, we will embark on extensive research about how the interviewees will receive our product and test our initial plans for commercialization.