DXJupyterLab Quickstart

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create and run a notebook in JupyterLab on the platform, download data from the notebook, and upload results to the platform.

DXJupyterLab is accessible to all users of the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform and the Our Future Health Trusted Research Environment.

A license is required to access DXJupyterLab on the DNAnexus Platform. Contact DNAnexus Sales for more information.

Run a JupyterLab Session and Create Notebooks

1. Launch DXJupyterLab and View the Project

First, launch DXJupyterLab in the project of your choice, as described in the Running DXJupyterLab guide.

After starting your JupyterLab session, click on the DNAnexus tab on the left sidebar to see all the files and folders in the project.

2. Create an Empty Notebook

To create a new empty notebook in the DNAnexus project, select DNAnexus > New Notebook from the top menu.

This creates an untitled ipynb file, viewable in the DNAnexus project browser, which refreshes every few seconds.

To rename your file, right-click on its name and select Rename.

3. Edit and Save the Notebook in the Project

You can open and edit the newly created notebook directly from the project (accessible from the DNAnexus tab in the left sidebar). To save your changes, press Ctrl+S (or Command+S on macOS), or click on the save icon in the Toolbar (an area below the tab bar at the top). A new notebook version lands in the project, and you should see in the "Last modified" column that the file was created recently.

Since DNAnexus files are immutable, each notebook save creates a new version in the project, replacing the file of the same name. The previous version moves to the .Notebook_archive with a timestamp suffix added to its name. Saving notebooks directly in the project as new files preserves your analyses beyond the DXJupyterLab session's end.

4. Download the Data to the Execution Environment

To process your data in the notebook, the data must be available in the execution environment (as is the case with any DNAnexus app).

You can download input data from a project for your notebook using dx download in a notebook cell:

%%bash
dx download input_data/reads.fastq

You can also use the terminal to execute the dx command.

5. Upload Data to the Project

For any data generated by your notebook that needs to be preserved, upload it to the project before the session ends and the JupyterLab worker terminates. Upload data directly in the notebook by running dx upload from a notebook cell or from the terminal:

%%bash
dx upload results.csv

If you create a notebook from the Launcher or from the top menu (File > New > Notebook), the notebook is not created in the project but in the local execution environment. To move it to the project, you must upload it to the project manually. Make sure you upload your local notebooks to the project before the session expires, or work on your notebooks directly from the project, so as not to lose your work.

Next Steps

• Check the References guide for tips on the most useful operations and features in the DNAnexus JupyterLab.