Building containerized workflows using the BioDepot-workflow-builder (Bwb)

We present BioDepot-workflow-Builder (BwB), a portable and open-source tool for creating bioinformatics workflows with a simple drag-and-drop graphical user interface. The individual components of the workflows are Docker containers which are available from public repositories or provided by the user. The use of software containers ensures that workflows will give identical results across different operating systems and hardware architectures. The use of Docker also allows for individual components to be deployed on the cloud. The modularity and ease of customization and installation of bioinformatics tools using BwB allows for researchers to efficiently test new workflows and compare competing algorithms. Since BwB itself is packaged in a Docker container, the setup is minimal. In particular, users only need to install Docker and have access to a web browser to begin creating and running workflows. As a proof-of-concept case study, we illustrated the feasibility of BwB by developing widgets for the RNA-seq differential expression analysis workflow employed by the NIH BD2K-LINCS Drug Toxicity Signature Generation Center at Mount Sinai. The app and all the containers are available on the BioDepot repository (https://hub.docker.eom/r/biodepot).

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