SignalForge Translational Analytics Platform

Molecule-to-transcriptome intelligence — built on the DeepCOP paper (PMID 31504186).

SignalForge is a translational analytics platform that predicts how small molecules perturb gene expression and ranks candidate compounds against a desired therapeutic signature — turning transcriptomic reasoning into a reproducible, auditable, API-driven workflow.

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Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  React SPA (frontend/)                                          │
│  Assay Page → Compound query + gene effect prediction           │
│  Atlas Page → Reverse-signature design + candidate ranking      │
│  Molecule Viewer → SmilesDrawer holographic rendering           │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                           │ REST / JSON
┌──────────────────────────▼──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  FastAPI (backend/)                                             │
│  POST /predict/gene-effect  → per-gene up/down/neutral scores   │
│  POST /search/reverse-signature → ranked compound list          │
│  GET  /healthz  /meta        → telemetry + model provenance     │
│  Security: API key, rate limiter, request-ID, audit trail       │
└──────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                           │ joblib
┌──────────────────────────▼──────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ML pipeline (ml/)                                              │
│  Data: DeepCOP DESeq2 + LINCS L1000 GO-term fingerprints        │
  │  Features: Morgan-2048 (RDKit) + GO-term gene vectors (978 genes × 1107 GO terms, hash fallback for OOV)
│  Model: LogisticRegression (class_weight=balanced, sklearn)     │
│  Macro F1: 0.51  |  Down-recall: 0.50  |  Up-recall: 0.53      │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

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Repository structure

Folder	Description
backend/	FastAPI API — prediction endpoints, audit IDs, API key auth, rate limiting
frontend/	React + TypeScript SPA — assay explorer, atlas, molecular visualisation
ml/	RDKit feature engineering, GO-term gene embeddings, training pipeline, model artifacts
docs/	Technical documentation and security architecture
.github/workflows/	CI — ML tests, backend tests, frontend build on every push

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Quickstart

1. ML — train the model

cd ml
pip install -e ".[dev]"
signalforge-ml train --config configs/baseline.yaml

2. Backend — start the API

cd backend
pip install -e "."
cp .env.example .env          # edit API keys if needed
.venv/Scripts/uvicorn app.main:app --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000 --reload

3. Frontend — start the dev server

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:5173 — paste a SMILES string, pick genes, run the assay.

---

API reference

Method	Endpoint	Auth	Description
GET	/healthz	—	Service health + model version
GET	/meta	—	Platform metadata + pipeline stages
POST	/predict/gene-effect	API key	Predict up/down/neutral per gene
POST	/search/reverse-signature	API key	Rank compounds by transcriptomic reversal score

Full interactive docs at http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs (Swagger UI).

---

Running tests

# ML pipeline
cd ml && pytest tests/ -v

# Backend API
cd backend && pytest tests/ -v

# Frontend type-check + build
cd frontend && npm run build

---

Technology stack

• ML: Python 3.12, scikit-learn, RDKit, pandas, joblib
• Backend: FastAPI, Pydantic v2, uvicorn, Python 3.12
• Frontend: React 19, TypeScript strict, Vite 7, SmilesDrawer, React Router v6
• CI: GitHub Actions (ml-tests → backend-tests → frontend-build)
• Containerisation: Docker Compose (backend + frontend services)

---

Scientific basis

Built on the DeepCOP framework (Moo et al., 2019 — PMID 31504186).
Training data: LNCaP prostate cancer cell line, Enzalutamide DESeq2 perturbation results, LINCS L1000 978 landmark genes.

Research use only. Not validated for clinical decision-making.

1. Reverse Signature Search

The user uploads a disease signature such as genes that are too high or too low, and the system searches for compounds predicted to reverse it.

Pitch: "Find molecules that may counteract a disease program."

2. Mechanism Contrast Lab

Compare multiple compounds and show how different mechanisms could converge or diverge at the gene-expression level.

Pitch: "Why do two drugs with different targets still create similar transcriptomic outcomes?"

3. AI for Oncology Sandbox

Focus on cancer and let users explore compounds against prostate, breast, or lung cancer signatures.

Pitch: "A precision oncology explorer for gene-expression-directed compound screening."

MVP

Build the smallest version first:

1. Load a compound library with SMILES.
2. Generate molecular fingerprints with RDKit.
3. Represent genes using Gene Ontology-derived features or a simpler embedding baseline.
4. Train a model to predict up/down regulation labels from LINCS-style perturbation data.
5. Build a UI that lets a user query one compound against one or more genes.
6. Show ranked predictions and a simple pathway/network visualization.

Practical stack

• Model: PyTorch
• Cheminformatics: RDKit
• Data wrangling: pandas, pyarrow
• API: FastAPI
• Frontend: React or Next.js
• Visualization: Plotly, Cytoscape.js, or D3
• Storage: PostgreSQL or DuckDB for fast local iteration

Suggested datasets

• LINCS L1000 perturbation data
• DrugBank or ChEMBL compound metadata
• Gene Ontology annotations
• MSigDB or pathway gene-set resources for pathway views

What makes it cool

Most drug-AI demos stop at binding or classification. This one predicts downstream biological effect. That is a much better story:

• not "does molecule bind target?"
• but "what gene program might this molecule induce?"

That is a more visual, more intuitive, and more productizable idea.

Repo plan

• docs/deepcop-project-brief.md: product concept, architecture, and phased roadmap
• docs/security-architecture.md: biotech-oriented guardrails and upgrade path
• CONTRIBUTING.md: contribution workflow, PR expectations, and data/model contribution rules
• LICENSE: GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later

Open source policy

SignalForge Explorer is open source under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license.

That choice keeps the project open while providing stronger protection than permissive licenses: if someone modifies and serves the software over a network, they must also make the corresponding source available under the same license.

Recommended next build

If you want to turn this into a real portfolio project, build SignalForge Explorer first. It has the best mix of research value, visual output, and demo quality.

Quick start

Backend

cd backend
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -e .
copy .env.example .env
uvicorn app.main:app --reload

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
copy .env.example .env
npm run dev

ML pipeline

cd ml
python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -e .
signalforge-ml ingest
signalforge-ml train

Containerized deployment (enterprise-ready)

Use Docker Compose to run a stable backend/frontend stack with health checks and pinned runtime images.

docker compose up --build -d

Services:

• Frontend: http://localhost:5173
• Backend API: http://localhost:8000
• API docs: http://localhost:8000/docs

To stop:

docker compose down

Model metric transparency

SignalForge exposes training status and key quality metrics in GET /meta so reviewers can verify model quality before trusting results.

Example:

Invoke-RestMethod http://localhost:8000/meta | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 6

The response includes:

• training_status
• training_metrics (for example accuracy, macro_f1, weighted_f1, rauc when available)
• metrics_source (manifest file path)

What stands out technically

• molecule-plus-gene reasoning instead of plain compound classification
• reverse-signature ranking for disease-program exploration
• deterministic placeholder inference so the full stack is demoable before the real model is trained
• checksum-gated dataset handling and explicit research-use-only security posture