Case study2023
High Throughput Screening Reactor
Web app to configure, schedule and monitor laboratory experiments in real time, visualising 1,000+ data points per second.
- Client
- Datamole
- Role
- Software Engineer, frontend owner
- Period
- 2020 – 2023
- data points per second
- 1,000+
- experiment monitoring
- Real time
- of ownership
- 3 years
Context
A High Throughput Screening Reactor (HTSR) lets scientists run many chemical experiments in parallel. Datamole built the software that controls it — and I owned its web application.
Scientists use the app to configure the device, schedule experiments and watch them run in real time. When an experiment is running for hours, the UI is the only window into what’s happening inside the hardware.
The challenge
- Volume — the device streams more than 1,000 data points per second.
- Responsiveness — charts must stay smooth and interactive while data keeps arriving.
- Hardware reality — the UI has to reflect the true device state, including delays, errors and disconnects.
What I built
A subscription-based communication layer
I architected the client communication layer around subscriptions: components subscribe to exactly the data streams they display, updates are batched, and nothing re-renders just because unrelated data changed.
Custom real-time visualisations
Stock chart components weren’t built for this data rate. I built custom interactive visualisations on top of Chart.js that process and render large datasets efficiently — so scientists can zoom and inspect while the experiment continues.
Integration with the device
I worked closely with the hardware and backend teams to make sure the web UI and the physical device stayed in sync, and covered critical flows with Jest and Cypress tests.
Outcome
A reliable, smooth interface for a data-intensive scientific instrument, maintained and extended over three years.