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One major problem faced by the Chemical Imaging and Structures Laboratory was determining the meaning of a peak on a spectrum of some tissue sample in order to assess its importance in regard to the histopathology or the type determination of the tissue. This is a common process in spectroscopy labs, as a spectrum by itself does not provide any information about the molecular content of the tissue in question; one must analyze the peaks in order to determine which compounds or types of compounds are present and which are not present. However, within the context of the research group, the meaning of each peak would be different for each tissue class and so more specific information was necessary.

As of the summer of 2006, the available solutions at the time for solving this problem were insufficient and inefficient, and so the purpose upon inception of Metaspectra was to create an online database that allowed for easy searching for peaks and provided information on the meaning of peaks as applicable to each tissue type.

Metaspectra was created by Fenguin Design during the course of that summer. In addition to a simple and elegant design, many advanced features were incorporated, including an advanced user ranking system, searching by wavenumber utilizing a fuzzy search algorithm termed PeakMatch, custom pages for each author and publication, and an intuitive interface for adding data. For adding multiple peaks from the same paper, the system stores reference information in a cookie to simplify the process. Furthermore, double clicking the database page would instantly pop up a window for on-the-spot editing.

Estimated completion time: 150 hours
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