BioBlocks: Programming Protocols in Biology Made Easier

Area of Science:

• Biotechnology
• Bioinformatics
• Scientific Automation

Background:

• Biological experiment execution methods are rapidly evolving.
• Automation in biology offers high-throughput experimentation, rapid prototyping, and enhanced reproducibility.
• A significant barrier to automation is the requirement for programming expertise.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce BioBlocks, a web-based visual development environment for describing biological experimental protocols.
• To enable researchers with little or no programming experience to automate experiment execution.
• To establish an open-source platform for specifying, saving, modifying, and sharing experimental protocols.

Main Methods:

• Developed a web-based visual programming environment inspired by Google's Blockly and Scratch.
• Designed BioBlocks to require minimal or no computer programming knowledge.
• Implemented features for easy specification, saving, modification, and sharing of experimental protocols.

Main Results:

• BioBlocks allows users to easily describe and automate biological experiments.
• The platform facilitates collaboration through easy sharing of experimental protocols.
• BioBlocks is open-source and adaptable for local or cloud-based robotic execution.

Conclusions:

• BioBlocks democratizes biological experiment automation by removing the programming barrier.
• The tool promotes efficient and reproducible scientific workflows.
• BioBlocks aims to become an open standard for programming biological protocols.