BioMANIA: Simplifying bioinformatics data analysis through conversation

Abstract

The rapid advancements in high-throughput sequencing technologies have produced a wealth of omics data, facilitating significant biological insights but presenting immense computational challenges. Traditional bioinformatics tools require substantial programming expertise, limiting accessibility for experimental researchers. Despite efforts to develop user-friendly platforms, the complexity of these tools continues to hinder efficient biological data analysis. In this paper, we introduce BioMANIA- an AI-driven, natural language-oriented bioinformatics pipeline that addresses these challenges by enabling the automatic and codeless execution of biological analyses. BioMANIA leverages large language models (LLMs) to interpret user instructions and execute sophisticated bioinformatics work-flows, integrating API knowledge from existing Python tools. By streamlining the analysis process, BioMANIA simplifies complex omics data exploration and accelerates bioinformatics research. Compared to relying on general-purpose LLMs to conduct analysis from scratch, BioMANIA, informed by domain-specific biological tools, helps mitigate hallucinations and significantly reduces the likelihood of confusion and errors. Through comprehensive benchmarking and application to diverse biological data, ranging from single-cell omics to electronic health records, we demonstrate BioMANIAs ability to lower technical barriers, enabling more accurate and comprehensive biological discoveries.