BioChef, genomics tools that run in a browser tab.
Researchers from IEETA and DETI at the Universidade de Aveiro have published a paper of direct relevance to the Federated European Genome-phenome Archive (FEGA) and Genomic Data Infrastructure (GDI) communities.
The paper, “BioChef: a client-side WebAssembly-based workflow builder for genomic data analysis,” was authored by Joaquim Rosa, João Andrade, Jorge Miguel Silva, and José Luís Oliveira, and published in BMC Bioinformatics in April 2026.
BioChef is developed at IEETA/DETI, University of Aveiro, a partner of BioData.pt | ELIXIR Portugal. It is an open catalogue of bioinformatics tools compiled to WebAssembly, which removes the need for remote servers and for specialised local installations. Analyses are assembled in a visual drag and drop editor and executed entirely inside the web browser, with all data remaining on the user’s own machine. This addresses a recurring challenge for the FEGA and GDI communities, namely how to analyse sensitive genomic data without ever moving it.
Each tool in the catalogue is declared as a YAML recipe, then built, tested, signed and published as a verifiable bundle carrying a software bill of materials and SLSA provenance. Researchers can therefore check exactly which code is running in their browser, and the catalogue is open to community contributions.
BioChef is fully open source and freely available for the community to explore and build upon.
Try the app at https://biochef.app
Learn more about the project at https://home.biochef.app
Read the full paper in BMC Bioinformatics, Volume 27, article 103 (2026), https://lnkd.in/eb2imiKG