Vesicle Viewer: Online Analysis of Small Angle Scattering from Lipid Vesicles

Abstract

In this project, we developed an internet-based application, called Vesicle Viewer, to visualize and analyze small angle scattering data generated in the study of lipid bilayers. Vesicle Viewer models SAS data using the EZ-SDP model. In this way, key bilayer structural parameters, such as area per lipid and bilayer thickness, can be easily determined. This application primarily uses Django, a python package specialized for the development of robust web applications. In addition, several other libraries are used to support the more technical aspects of the project – notable examples are MatPlotLib (for graphs) and NumPy (for calculations). Without the barrier of downloading and installing software, the development of this web-based application will allow scientists all over the world to take advantage of this solution, regardless of their preferred operating system.