Wrapping Tools to Automate Workflows for Gene Therapy in Cystic Fibrosis

The cystic fibrosis group in the Molecular Medicine Centre (MMC) at the Western General are developing gene gene therapies to treat cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening hereditary disease. To understand which genes are responsible for the disease, and which genes may have diagnostic or prognostic value, they go through a long process of laboratory experiments and analysis, involving microarray experiments and several types of statistical tests. Many of the laboratory experiments are currently automated, but all of the analysis and data handling steps require human interaction.

The goal of your project is to outline the analysis processes, then wrap the individual steps and tools as web services. Finally, you will use a workflow tool, such as Taverna, to run those processes by calling the appropriate web services. Currently, one analysis takes the researchers two weeks; it is your goal to reduce this time considerably. If time permits, you will design, and perhaps implement a portal interface to the individual workflows.