Biowep: a workflow enactment portal for bioinformatics applications

Area of Science:

• Bioinformatics
• Computational Biology
• Data Science

Background:

• The increasing volume and complexity of biological data necessitate advanced bioinformatics tools for integration and analysis.
• Existing bioinformatics workflow systems often require programming skills, limiting accessibility for many researchers.
• A user-friendly portal is needed to bridge the gap between advanced bioinformatics technologies and non-expert users.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a web-based portal, Bio-WEP, for simplified selection and execution of predefined bioinformatics workflows.
• To enhance accessibility of complex bioinformatics analysis tools for researchers without programming expertise.
• To facilitate data integration and automation of in-silico analysis through a centralized platform.

Main Methods:

• Designed Bio-WEP as a web client application with a Workflow Manager, User Interface, and Workflow Executor.
• Integrated Taverna Workbench and BioWMS for workflow creation, utilizing FreeFluo and BioAgent/Hermes for enactment.
• Annotated workflow steps with input/output, elaboration type, and application domain for user-friendly searching and selection based on profiles.

Main Results:

• Developed and deployed Bio-WEP, an online system for selecting and executing predefined bioinformatics workflows.
• Implemented user authentication and profiling to personalize workflow recommendations and search capabilities.
• Enabled saving of analysis results for user convenience and further investigation.

Conclusions:

• Bio-WEP successfully simplifies access to bioinformatics workflows for a broader range of researchers.
• The system leverages Web Services and workflow automation to improve in-silico analysis efficiency.
• Bio-WEP serves as a reference portal, inviting user contributions to its workflow repository for continuous development.