Scientific Software
ESI Services
ESI’s software offerings run the gamut, from simple solutions to speed your workflow to highly tailored
approaches that address a unique need, such as bridging the gap between computational biology and clinical
research. Because our staff are also scientists, we understand those needs (e.g., we know where the bottlenecks
occur, where accuracy is paramount, and where data bias might be a problem). Our staff has the scientific and
technical know-how to develop software that solves highly complex problems within specialized areas, such as
precision medicine. Most importantly, you don’t need to be a coder to use our products. We give you the
solutions you need, often with a few clicks of a mouse.
Our software services include:
- Software Development: Designing and developing proprietary software tailored to your needs.
- Software Enhancement: Modifying existing software to better suite your work and to ensure security.
- Quality Assurance: Testing and validating software and ensuring full certification.
- Implementation and Technical Consultation: Launching software applications for large projects and individual tasks.
Our software services have also been appraised at a CMMI Maturity Level of 3. CMMI is a process improvement approach that provides organizations with essential elements of effective processes that ultimately improve their performance.
What our CMMI Maturity Level 3 rating means for you:
- We use organizational standards and tailoring to address project and work characteristics.
- Our projects use and contribute to organizational assets.
- We focus on achieving both project and organizational performance objectives.
- We’re dedicated to continuous performance improvement and producing the highest quality of products and services.
ESI Solutions In Action
For nearly two decades, ESI has worked with federal clients, such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI), to develop software to address a scientist’s unique needs.
We’ve designed and implemented dozens of bioinformatics software and tools, including approaches to interpret genetic and proteomic data, longitudinal data, and other biomarkers of disease. Moreover, because we build in sophistication, even students and novices can use our tools with the same success as experts in the field. Over the years, we’ve developed more than 60 software packages. Recent examples include NCI’s cProSite, ForgeDB, and 3DVizSNP—all designed to operate using a series of drop-down menus and simple filters.
ESI’s expertise has helped launch key NCI initiatives, such as the Cancer Research Data Commons and the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative—complex ecosystems with petabytes of data.
Bento—A Tailored Solution for a Complex Data Ecosystem
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the Cancer Research Data Commons (CRDC) to answer the Cancer
MoonshotSM initiative’s call to accelerate access and sharing of petabytes of cancer research data.
However, CRDC faced two key problems. First, it needed to support the full range of large-scale biological data
(e.g., sequencing data, proteomics, flow-cytometry, etc.) Second, researchers needed to have ready access to
these data to help speed scientific discovery. So, it needed to be fast.
ESI’s solution was to use “Bento,” an open source software, which enabled us to launch a fully functioning
Integrated Canine Data Commons and Clinical Trial Data Commons within 6 weeks.Because Bento is modular and the
model is fully tested and validated, it can support a range of data sets without the need for additional coding
or lengthy testing. It can also be scaled up as needed to meet NCI’s growing data needs.
ESI built Bento to work on both local servers and in the AWS and Google Cloud platforms. We ensured security by
assigning role-based access control. This gives NCI the highest level of security possible—a key requirement
when handling patient data. Our approved access control assigns scientists different levels of access depending
on their specific roles.
Our Bento model is schema-less, meaning it can be easily extended to accommodate new nodes and data types,
without needing to tamper with the original model. This feature allows you to expand the Bento Core Data Model
to suit the evolving needs of your data sharing platform.
We developed and extended the core data model to create the
BENTO_TAILORx