Building an Electron App to Improve Genetic Engineering Workflows

The life sciences company had a prototype of the software in development and needed additional expertise to ensure its Linux-based embedded device technology was production ready. In collaboration with the client’s development team, Six Feet Up greatly enhanced the existing Angular/Electron application and built a Continuous Integration (CI) workflow that brought the project to life on time and within budget.

The discovery phase included a thorough review of the application’s existing prototype code. Six Feet Up’s team determined that technologies appropriate for the project – Asynchronous I/O in Python and the Angular codebase – were already in place.

Immediately, Six Feet Up’s front-end developers began enhancing the application user experience. User experience updates included the design of new views and improvements on the user interactions within those view states. Simultaneously, Six Feet Up’s back-end developers were implementing unit tests for code and adding functionality.

Next, the team determined how the device would update and how the system would handle both data persistence and potential device update failures. Specifically, the team recommended an ideal partition layout and a deployment method for downloading updates to the devices.

The team was also tasked with implementing a workflow that would handle a number of CI pre-deployment checks including rigorous testing and monitoring requirements to ensure that the device technology had the stability to perform well once deployed in the field.

Testing and monitoring requirements included:

• Logging significant system events to assist in device malfunction and debugging
• Audit trails for documentation and delivery sign-off
• Detailed process for pull request review and logging

Throughout the implementation process, a close, ongoing collaboration between Six Feet Up and the life sciences company was critical to the project’s success.

In just three months, Six Feet Up successfully delivered a fully functional working application that interfaced with the device and was ready for installation by the manufacturer. Today, this device is being used to improve genetic engineering workflows in laboratories around the world.