MitoViewer

Girihlet Inc. is a biotech startup deploying deep-sequencing technology. In one initiative, they discovered that the human mitochondrial genome contains a great deal of heteroplasmy: genetically distinct populations of mitochondria that are stably maintained during cell division. Some of these alleles have medical implications.

Girihlet required a web-based data viewer to make their work accessible to a broad audience.

Working from a SQLite database produced by Girihlet, I built an API to access the data and a JavaScript-based viewer that runs in the user's browser. The user can view alleles and can manipulate the map by zooming, scrolling and rotating. Because the map is based on SVG, it is highly interactive: the user can drag to select regions for zooming and can get additional information about map features by hovering over them with the mouse.