Linking and brushing of biochemical effects on the human body

Praktikum / Diplomarbeit

Eduard Gröller,

Gerhard Wolber, Alois Dornhofer,

(Inte:Ligand GmbH)

Content:

Task

Implementation of a visualization and exploring technique showing biological effects of new chemical compounds on the human body ("linking and brushing")

Description

Inte:Ligand is a young company combining the fields of pharmaceutical chemistry and informatics. The central research field is the elaboration of a simulation method which is capable of predicting the biological effect of an arbitrary chemical compound to the human body. This technique can either be used to find new medical drugs or to predict potential side effects even before a new medical drug is available.

In order to visualize a bio-affinity profile (all biological effects as a whole) a "linking and brushing" data visualiszation tool is to be implemented: Each effect of one or several chemical compounds on the human body will be plotted in a 2D square area (1 pixel corresponds to one effect), called main selection pad. This area groups the effects in terms of pharmacological relevance and semantic biochemical similarity and gives a fast overview. By selecting several interaction effects the properties of the underlying simulation models shall be explored.

Properties can be expressed as a collection of scalar values, which are to be shown on several parallel axes (parallel coordinate technique or simply a collection of histograms showing the distribution of each property in a line). Selection of certain properties in the parallel coordinate display shall show a feedback effect on the overview display in the main selection pad. The clue is to link the property display to the main selection pad such that selecting datasets ("brushing") in one window will select the corresponding datasets in the other.

Requirements

Additional Information

Funding and Environment

You will get the possibility to work in our office in the center of vienna, get new hardware and a fast internet connection. Funding is subject to negotiations.