Week 0: Introduction and Background

Hello everyone! Welcome to my senior project. In this first blog post, I’ll be discussing the background of bioassay analysis, my project purpose, and my prior research. 

        Biological assays are widely used in biomedical and clinical research. An experiment can be set up (e.g. 96 well plate), which can be analyzed with various methods. Data returned can come in the form of absorbance values, fluorescence, etc. However, this data needs to be converted to a graph in order for it to be useful to the researcher. This can be done through tedious formulas and analysis through Excel/Sheets, or a software can be used to automate this process.

        The programmed software aims to allow for simple and easy conversion of data values in various biologic assays into analyzable data (graphs, charts, etc.) instead of tedious conversion and graph generation via spreadsheets. I hope to create a software that can serve as easy graph generation and data analysis for biological researchers (and have a collection of data types to choose from), and allow it to be exported. I plan to write Python Jupyter notebook scripts to automatically process biological assay data including MTT, Cell Colony Formation, ELISA, etc. and visualize it on the go. Future versions will include deploying a Python app using the Python Flask framework so everyone around the world can use it. For assay protocols and program design, I will use publications from PubMed and Google Scholar to ensure the graph generation is accurate according to the nature of the experiment. 

As a high school researcher in cancer biology and immunology, I am familiar with the workings and concepts behind many biological assays such as MTT, Colony Formation, ELISA, etc. I have experience conducting these assays and know how to extract data from them manually. I have also taken classes in neuroscience, biology, and chemistry at a college level, in addition to reading textbooks and papers about immunology such as Janeway’s Immunology and Campbell’s Biology. I have some experience in programming and computer science, and it will be a great opportunity to learn more about app design and data analysis in the biological context. 

In the first few weeks, I’ll be researching selected assay implementations in code and learning the libraries and modules I’ll be using in this project. Stay tuned!