Balsam—an interactive online platform for breath analysis, visualization and classification

The field of breath analysis lacks a fully automated analysis platform that enforces machine learning good practice and enables clinicians and clinical researchers to rapidly and reproducibly discover metabolite patterns in diseases. We present BALSAM—a comprehensive web-platform to simplify and automate this process, offering features for preprocessing, peak detection, feature extraction, visualization and pattern discovery. Our main focus is on data from multi-capillary-column ion-mobility-spectrometry. While not limited to breath data, BALSAM was developed to increase consistency and robustness in the data analysis process of breath samples, aiming to expand the array of low cost molecular diagnostics in clinics. Our platform is freely available as a web-service and in form of a publicly available docker container.