NSF BioPACIFIC MIP Wiki

The BioPACIFIC MIP Materials Library (hereafter, Library) is a publicly-accessible application (Fig 1) that displays all of the chemicals/materials (Fig 2) available for sample request. Sample requests are a proposal-driven process that be submitted here. Once approved, you'll be given the specified quantity of the material for your research use.


Fig 1. Materials library home page.


Fig 2. Display of the materials currently available in the library. These may be further indicated as available for sample and/or data request(s).

The Library shares a database with the LIMS, meaning that all materials found here are stored in the broader LIMS database. Furthermore, there are a variety of features available within the Library. You can search for specific materials, add materials to the library, and make changes to your own registered materials in the library.

Basic search functionality is available in the library. You may search by compound names. This search is a partial search, meaning it looks for any matching string anywhere within the provided name of the compound (Fig 3). For compounds named according to IUPAC standards, this provides some ability to search/filter by functional group.


Fig 3. Example search results for the search term “benz”, reducing the displayed results to only those compounds containing the search term in their name.

The user dashboard (Fig 4) allows registered users to either add compounds/materials to the library or edit existing compounds that they previously registered (either directly in the Library or through the BioPACIFIC MIP LIMS, to which the Library is connected). It should be noted that access to the dashboard requires the user to have registered for an account in the BioPACIFIC MIP Portal.


Fig 4. User dashboard entry point, showing which functions are available to the user. This requires that you have a registered BioPACIFIC MIP Portal account.

Items can be added to the Library by clicking on the Add to Library button in the Dashboard. Following this, the form shown in Fig. 5 will be presented to the user to complete. All of the listed fields are mandatory, including the Protocol field. The Protocol field expects some sort of text file describing how to synthesize the new compound.


Fig 5. Form fields for adding a new material to the Library. All fields shown are required to successfully upload a material.

Items already in the Library can be edited at any time by the user who registered them, By clicking the Edit your library chemicals button, users are taken to a display of all the chemicals registered to them – whether the displayed chemicals are already in the Library or not. As shown in Fig 6, users can designate whether the item of their choice is available for sample request, upload new structure files, and change other values, as they see fit.


Fig 6. Form fields for editing an existing material in the Library. Users can add or replace structure files. Additionally, users can control material visibility and edit properties as needed.

Users may remove any chemical they've registered in the library from public display by simply unchecking the “Available to Library” box in the Edit Chemical window. The Chemical will remain available in the LIMS, but will no longer be shown to other users in the Library search/display.