The BioStore Idea

The VIP BioStore project addresses the current bottleneck in NGS based data analysis. It is meant to be a catalyst for bringing state-of-the-art algorithmic research to a broader community of developers and and the same time enable researchers in the biomedical sciences to have easy access to such tools via a distribution and execution platform.

Parts of the BioStore concept.

The BioStore will contain an SDK based on SeqAn, a shop module as distribution platform, and a workflow engine to allow an easy combination and execution of tools and workflows.

The goal of the project are as follows:

1. Demonstration of the technical feasibility of the BioStore concept and the collection of user requirements for further developing the concept into a robust product.
2. The easy and robust useability of the workflow and shop modules. This is a prerequisite for the acceptance of the concept by the users and developers.
3. Building an SDK which will be the basis for fast development of efficient analysis tools for NGS data. The emphasis lies on functional content and a programming APIs and documentation tools that discourage programming errors.

The services that will be developed in the project readdresses three different groups that can be identified in the field of NGS data analysis.

1. The users of NGS technologies: Biomedical researchers and companies without an extensive expertise in algorithm development.
2. The technology developers: companies that work on NGS devices, protocols and data analysis.
3. The tool developers: Computer scientists and bioinformaticians (academic or commercial) who develop and implement algorithms and mathematical models for research projects or clinical or industrial applications.