Research Article

shinyGISPA: A web application for characterizing phenotype by gene sets using multiple omics data combinations

Publishing date: 2018-02-07 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: None authors: Bhakti Dwivedi, Jeanne Kowalski link to paper: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192563 Icons made by catkuro from www.flaticon.com

Loop Assembly: a simple and open system for recursive fabrication of DNA circuits

Publishing date: 2018-01-18 Published on: bioRxiv summary: High efficiency methods for DNA assembly are based on sequence overlap between fragments or Type IIS restriction endonuclease cleavage and ligation. These have enabled routine assembly of synthetic DNAs of increased size and complexity.

Improving mapping for Ebola response through mobilising a local community with self-owned smartphones: Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone, January 2015

Publishing date: 2018-01-03 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: During the 2014–16 Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak, the Magburaka Ebola Management Centre (EMC) operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone, identified that available district maps lacked up-to-date village information to facilitate timely implementation of EVD control strategies.

A microfluidic thermometer: Precise temperature measurements in microliter- and nanoliter-scale volumes

Publishing date: 2017-12-28 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: These authors took up the challenge of creating a thermometer for accurate measurements of biological and chemical samples on the microliter or nanoliter scale.

Low cost and open source multi-fluorescence imaging system for teaching and research in biology and bioengineering

Publishing date: 2017-11-15 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: In this exciting design, the authors present a large-field of view fluorescence chamber for visualisation of, well, anything that fluoresceses. Using LEDs and low-cost acrylics the system is set-up to allow for convenient simultaneous imaging in multiple colours using an RGB camera.

Democratizing science with the aid of parametric design and additive manufacturing: Design and fabrication of a versatile and low-cost optical instrument for scattering measurement

Publishing date: 2017-11-07 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: This paper focuses on the application of rapid prototyping techniques using additive manufacturing in combination with parametric design to create low-cost, yet accurate and reliable instruments.

Bioconda: A sustainable and comprehensive software distribution for the life sciences

Publishing date: 2017-10-27 Published on: bioRxiv summary: Björn Grüning and colleagues here present Bioconda (https://bioconda.github.io), a distribution of bioinformatics software for the lightweight, multi-platform and language-agnostic package manager Conda. Currently, Bioconda offers a collection of over 3000 software packages, which is continuously maintained, updated, and extended by a growing global community of more than 200 contributors.

A programmable optical stimulator for the Drosophila eye

Publishing date: 2017-10-01 Published on: HardwareX summary: A programmable optical stimulator for Drosophila eyes is presented. The target application of the stimulator is to induce retinal degeneration in fly photoreceptor cells by exposing them to light in a controlled manner.

Open-source automated external defibrillator

Publishing date: 2017-10-01 Published on: HardwareX summary: The Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is a medical device that analyzes a patient’s electrocardiogram in order to establish whether he/she is suffering from the fatal condition of Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), and subsequently allows the release of a therapeutic dose of electrical energy (i.

MRIQC: Advancing the automatic prediction of image quality in MRI from unseen sites

Publishing date: 2017-09-25 Published on: PLOS ONE summary: This paper presents the MRI Quality Control tool (MRIQC), a tool for extracting quality measures and fitting a binary (accept/exclude) classifier. The results show that the tool performs with high accuracy in intra-site prediction, but performance on unseen sites leaves space for improvement