Release Notes

BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER

Welcome to Metabolon’s latest set of release notes. How’s that science thing going? We hope you are changing the world today. You are a hero, and we’re proud of you; never forget that. Here are a few insights about what’s new at Metabolon.

CLIENT PORTAL

Bug fixes

• Pathway map metabolite fold change sizing fixed.
• Fixes for direct Discovery Panel link for expired tokens.

General Improvements to the Portal:

• Quality of life improvements to sign-up and login processes.
• Updated code to support the upcoming Manifest Upload page.

MACHINE LEARNING & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

If you’re too young to know what SkyNet is, we recommend that you binge-watch the entire Terminator movie series now (or tonight after work; keep your job because the world needs more scientists).

• From human plasma to maize kernels and everything in between, our machine learning now looks for metabolites in whatever species matrix you send us.
• For any type of human cell, we just expanded our automated QC to provide more oversight on the core machine learning algorithm—we watch the watchmen.

SERVICES

And by “services,” we mean cool stuff like Metabolon Discovery Panels, Targeted Panels, and Single Analyte Assays (Team Oxford Comma!) that help you explore new things.

Compound Naming Update

• We were recently adding compounds to our already impressive, biologically focused, super-library when we noticed that one of the compound names was a bit ambiguous. There was a more appropriate name to describe this compound’s structure. As we strive to ensure that investigators know what actual molecule on which we are reporting (including having associated database links), we are updating the name of the molecule O-methyltyrosine to tyrosine methyl ester. Don’t worry, the chemical ID remains the same, so you will know you are still tracking the same compound from previous studies. Also, to round out the story, we are adding two new compounds to the library to fill in this molecular family, per the chart below. Enjoy!

• Bug fixes
• Small molecules, appropriately sized circles. Added a bug fix that more granularly resizes metabolite circles based on fold change in the Pathway Explorer tab of the Portal.
• Introduced a “fast clicker” bug fix which keeps the Pathway Explorer from crashing when clicking around too fast in the Enrichment tab.
• Accessibility Improvements
• In order to make our heatmap deliverable readable by all, expect blue and red instead of green and red cells in our heatmap deliverable soon. Bonus: This color update will match what you see in the Stats Table in the Portal!