title: BioBlocks: Programming Protocols in Biology Made Easier.
abstract: The methods to execute biological experiments are evolving. Affordable fluid handling robots and on-demand biology enterprises are making automating entire experiments a reality. Automation offers the benefit of high-throughput experimentation, rapid prototyping, and improved reproducibility of results. However, learning to automate and codify experiments is a difficult task as it requires programming expertise. Here, we present a web-based visual development environment called BioBlocks for describing experimental protocols in biology. It is based on Google's Blockly and Scratch, and requires little or no experience in computer programming to automate the execution of experiments. The experiments can be specified, saved, modified, and shared between multiple users in an easy manner. BioBlocks is open-source and can be customized to execute protocols on local robotic platforms or remotely, that is, in the cloud. It aims to serve as a de facto open standard for programming protocols in Biology.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid . Campus de Montegancedo, Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), 28660, Spain.
authors.forename: Vishal
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gupta
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid . Campus de Montegancedo, Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), 28660, Spain.
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Irimia
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid . Campus de Montegancedo, Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), 28660, Spain.
authors.forename: Iván
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Pau
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Inteligencia Artificial, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid . Campus de Montegancedo, Boadilla del Monte (Madrid), 28660, Spain.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Patón
mesh_terms: D001331:Automation; D019295:Computational Biology; D011381:Programming Languages; D058615:Synthetic Biology / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Blockly; Scratch; high-level programming language; lab automation; rapid prototyping; reproducibility