Launch query for cell neighborhoods

[tsliaw]

User:

Biologist, Computational Analyst

User Scenario:

In viewing a segmented tissue dataset, the user observes a particular pattern of cell neighborhoods. The user wants to find out in what other samples or tissues cell neighborhoods with the same composition or interactions as the observed cell neighborhood can be found?
The user would launch a query through Vitessce by selecting the cell neighbood of interest with a lasso selection and triggering a search for this neighborhood across all segmented data sets. Any result in the list of retrieved samples could be viewed immediately and furthermore, the results could summarized visually, e.g., using a bar chart to show in which tissue types this kind of cell neighborhood is common.
Because this query relies on a spatial relationship, it would be extremely challenging to define it in a non-visual search interface.

User Needs/Wants:

• Ability to launch query directly from Vitessce with user interaction with visualization (e.g. lasso selection)
• User interaction have ability to preset conditions for query
• Query will deliver output of list of samples across database reflecting similar compositions/interactions