ChemAxon BioEddie

SUMMARY
Project scope: Bringing a new tool to market
Target audience: Biochemists working in drug discovery
Business challenge: Provide an easy-to-use interface to a complex workflow
My role: information architecture, screen design, prototyping, user testing
Stakeholders: product owner/business analyst, full stack and front-end developers

The problem

It was quite a challenge to visualize and edit macromolecules. Biochemists had to have deep IT knowledge to handle command line interfaces, scripts, manage database connections and run queries. 

The process

BioEddie had a Java precursor called HELM Editor, which served as a proof-of-concept as well. The product owner is a biochemist and was working on that project, so he had a lot of experience and knew the problems of the original HELM Editor. Based on his knowledge we had a good start, and since BioEddie was developed as part of the Pistoia Alliance, continuous feedback was provided as well. 

The team sat in the same office and worked together closely: aside from the dedicated weekly meetings we could just ask one another if we had a question or problem. 

The solution

The experience gained from BioEddie’s precursor and the already existing backend architecture more or less defined the scope and the roadmap. What we aimed is to get rid of the IT-related problems – like having to install a Java applet or setting up database connections – and to offer a robust web-based tool.

The building blocks of a macromolecule (sequence, peptides, chemical modifiers, nucleic acids, BLOB objects) are represented on the Canvas. Every building block can be accessed from the Library and most of the blocks can be edited in a chemical drawing tool. 

BioEddie became easy to use, while its features help a lot in editing macromolecules. It’s possible to edit biomolecules on the canvas and in a text editor as well; editing allows only meaningful connections; users can edit both small- and macromolecules in the same tool. BioEddie can connect to a database filled with chemical compounds like modifiers or drug development candidates. BioEddie allows cooperation by sharing data with colleagues or external databases for further examination.

Watch the screen capture video to see BioEddie working live:

Results

BioEddie is now on the market. It is used by big pharma companies like Merck, or smaller contract research and manufacturing organizations. It works as a standalone or as an embedded application as well.