DAQ-Refine

Public web service for cryo-EM protein model refinement

DAQ-Refine (Aug 2023 – Jan 2024)

Role: Designer & Sole Developer

A public web service for cryo-EM protein model refinement, integrated into the EMSuite server and used for approximately 10–20 refinement jobs per month.

Key Achievements

  • Independently built and deployed a public React/Flask application with interactive Mol* visualization
  • Migrated a Colab workflow to lab infrastructure and automated SLURM job orchestration to run three refinement strategies per protein chain, select the best results, and assemble the final structure
  • Developed reusable input-validation, early error-reporting, and progress-tracking components for integration with other EM-server algorithms
  • Diagnosed recurring job failures reported by lab researchers and external users; added optional sequence alignment, specific input-error messages, and input-preparation documentation to help users resolve incompatible inputs

Technologies

  • Frontend: React.js, Mol* 3D visualization
  • Backend: Python, Flask, REST APIs
  • Infrastructure: SLURM job orchestration on lab infrastructure

Live Demo

The tool is available at em.kiharalab.org/algorithm/daq-refine

Developed at Kihara Lab, Purdue University