The success of widely used oligonucleotide-based experiments, ranging from PCR to microarray, strongly depends on an accurate design. The design process involves a number of steps, which use specific parameters to produce high quality oligonucleotides. Oli2go is an efficient, user friendly, fully automated multiplex oligonucleotide design tool, which performs primer and different hybridization probe designs as well as specificity and cross dimer checks in a single run. The main improvement to existing oligonucleotide design web-tools is that oli2go combines multiple steps in an all-in-one solution, where other web applications only accomplish parts of the whole design workflow. Especially, the oli2go specificity check is not only performed against a single species (e.g. mouse), but against bacteria, viruses, fungi, invertebrates, plants, protozoa, archaea and sequences from whole genome shotgun sequence projects and environmental samples, at once. This allows the design of highly specific oligonucleotides in multiplex applications, which is further assured by performing dimer checks not only on the primers themselves, but in an all-against-all fashion. The software is freely accessible to all users at http://oli2go.ait.ac.at/.

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Background A growing number of cancer and hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) survivors require long-term follow-up with optimal communication schemes, and patients' compliance is crucial. Adolescents have various unmet needs. Regarding self-report of symptoms and health status, users of mobile apps showed enhanced compliance. Currently, HSCT aftercare at the HSCT outpatient clinic of the St. Anna Children’s Hospital in Vienna, Austria, is based on handwritten diaries, carrying various disadvantages. Recently, we developed the prototype of a web-based, self-monitoring gamified mobile app tailored for adolescents: the INTERACCT (Integrating Entertainment and Reaction Assessment into Child Cancer Therapy) app. Objective This observational, prospective study evaluated the usability of the INTERACCT app for tracking real-time self-reported symptoms and health status data in adolescent HSCT patients and a healthy matched control group. The primary outcome of the study was the quality of the self-reported medical information. We hypothesized that the mobile app would provide superior medical information for the clinicians than would the handwritten diaries. Methods Health data were reported via paper diary and mobile app for 5 consecutive days each. The quality of medical information was rated on a 5-point scale independently and blinded by two HSCT clinicians, and the duration of use was evaluated. A total of 52 participant questionnaires were assessed for gaming patterns and device preferences, self-efficacy, users’ satisfaction, acceptability, and suggestions for improvement of the mobile app. Interrater reliability was calculated with the intraclass correlation coefficient, based on a two-way mixed model; one-way repeated-measures analysis of variance and t tests were conducted post hoc. Descriptive methods were used for correlation with participants’ demographics. For users’ satisfaction and acceptability of the mobile app, the median and the IQR were calculated. Results Data from 42 participants—15 patients and 27 healthy students—with comparable demographics were evaluated. The results of our study indicated a superiority of the quality of self-reported medical data in the INTERACCT app over traditional paper-and-pencil assessment (mobile app: 4.14 points, vs paper-based diary: 3.77 points, P=.02). The mobile app outperformed paper-and-pencil assessments mainly among the patients, in particular among patients with treatment-associated complications (mobile app: 4.43 points, vs paper-based diary: 3.73 points, P=.01). The mobile app was used significantly longer by adolescents (≥14 years: 4.57 days, vs ≤13 years: 3.14 days, P=.03) and females (4.76 days for females vs 2.95 days for males, P=.004). This corresponds with a longer duration of use among impaired patients with comorbidities. User satisfaction and acceptability ratings for the mobile app were high across all groups, but adherence to entering a large amount of data decreased over time. Based on our results, we developed a case vignette of the target group. Conclusions Our study was the first to show that the quality of patient-reported medical information submitted via the INTERACCT app embedded in a serious game is superior to that submitted via a handwritten diary. In light of these results, a refinement of the mobile app supported by a machine learning approach is planned within an international research project.

INTERACCT is a multidisciplinary research project, where a communication tool in form of a serious video game was implemented. Target group are young and adolescent patients which suffered leukaemia or similar diseases that indicate a stem cell transplantation as therapy. After the transplantation, patients are required to stay at home for 12-24 months and report their health status to their after-care medical team. To ease this reporting process, INTERACCT was conceptualized and a prototype was implemented. Through smartphones, tablets or desktop PCs the patients report their data to the medical team, which accesses this data through a newly developed web-system. The system is highly adaptable and customizable, and can be further extended using state-of-the-art technologies like Microsoft KINECT. This paper describes background information, the concept and finally the implementation of the prototype system.