| Description |
With advisement from the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) at the University of Utah, the WormWorld Capstone Project addresses several friction points in genetics research by introducing an application with 3 core features: 1. A dynamic editor that helps researchers dynamically perform multiple genetic crosses between organisms by abstracting away the mathematical complexities of performing these crosses by hand. 2. A task management system that automatically schedules the breeding of worms to help researchers minimize breeding mistakes and stay on target. 3. A centralized data manager allowing researchers to easily search/filter genetic traits (genes, alleles, phenotypes, etc.) and quickly upload new data as it is discovered. This thesis examines various software methodologies our team utilized to meet the needs of worm geneticists at SBS, all-the-while maintaining the flexibility to pivot and update the codebase as existing criteria changed. In addition, the thesis explores how our software processes were forced to evolve as we encountered avoidable introduction of bugs and battled an increasingly complex (and brittle) codebase. Subsequently, this thesis inspects potential impacts the WormWorld application can have in aiding research performed at the University of Utah. Researchers will have hands-on experience with the program and directly compare its use against the process of doing crosses on paper. It explores how the application drastically decreases the time to plan out a set of genetic crosses - from a matter of minutes/hours to seconds. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the application will help lower the barrier-of-entry to genetics research and make it easier for new lab assistants and students to learn the core mathematical principles behind genetic crosses. Finally, this thesis explores the exciting future of the project as an open-sourced application. Some possibilities include improved data entry interactions, more intuitive UI interactions, and advanced crossing capabilities. In addition, this thesis discusses how the current architecture allows for the project to expand and be used for many model organisms (beyond just the C. Elegans worm). |
