The Front Cover: Improving Data Analysis in Chemistry and Biology Through Versatile Baseline Correction (chemistry ‐ Methods 2/2021)

The Front Cover shows a cartoonish view into polymerase chain reaction: DNA molecules are amplified, resulting in the amplification curve on which they are walking. When analyzing this data, however, such a curve becomes a challenge for baseline correction algorithms. This is due to the vertical offset of datapoints before and after the curve. A newly developed algorithm accounts for this offset and is represented by an elevator, which takes all of the DNA molecules up the offset and to their destination. The left to right transition also represents the effect of transforming noisy data into clean signals, and sad DNA molecules into happy helixes. Data analysis challenges like this are encountered in various situations in chemistry and biology, to a selection of which the algorithm is applied, illustrating its utility. More information can be found in the Full Paper by Jacob Schneidewind et al.