Building Galaxy Labs to advance life science research
Anna Syme1, Madeline Bassetti2, Winnie Mok3, Cameron Hyde2, Nigel Ward3, Gareth Price2,4 1The University Of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia2Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia3The Australian BioCommons, Parkville, Victoria, Australia4The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
Abstract
Background
Galaxy Australia is a hosted web-accessible service supporting accessible, reproducible, and transparent research. It is used by hundreds of life science researchers per month who access a large and growing list of over 1,500 bioinformatics tools. As Galaxy expands to serve increasingly diverse analytical domains, the sheer volume of available tools and workflows has heightened the challenge for a new user to navigate to the most relevant resources.
Method
National science initiatives are genomically characterising Australian-relevant species to describe our biodiversity, support conservation efforts, enhance biosecurity measures, and improve agricultural outcomes. To support researchers undertaking data-intensive genome assembly and annotation, we built a Galaxy Australia “Genome Lab”. This Lab is a curated workbench of relevant tools, workflows and how-to guides for genome assembly and annotation. It also provides links to connect researchers so that they can advance their research, and troubleshoot, in a collaborative way.
Result
At the core of this project was a well-defined UI/UX aim – to build a clean and minimal web presence to best display relevant analysis options to a focused user base. We did this using elements from the Bootstrap UI library, and limited content to three sections, each with a tabbed header. Rollout of this first Lab (https://genome.usegalaxy.org.au) provides a useful template for efficient deployment of future focused Labs, to better connect the diverse resources of Galaxy Australia with specific research communities. Consultations are already underway to build the next Lab, the “Proteomics Lab”.
Biography
Dr Anna Syme is a Bioinformatican based at Melbourne Bioinformatics, at The University of Melbourne. Anna works with the Galaxy Australia team to develop infrastructure and training that supports Australian life science research.