IAMJ.in - Medical Journal Platform Modernization

Overview

I single-handedly designed, architected, developed, and deployed a complete modernization of IAMJ.in, transforming a legacy PHP-based medical journal website into a high-performance, SEO-optimized platform serving researchers and medical professionals.

Frontend & Backend Overhaul

Technical Transformation

• —Migrated from slow, outdated PHP application to modern Next.js frontend with SEO optimization and NestJS backend, dramatically improving page load times and search engine visibility
• —Built 17 modular services with dedicated REST APIs, implementing robust JWT-based authentication and NestJS Guards for role-based authorization
• —Designed modern, responsive UI using Tailwind CSS, Shadcn, and NextUI component libraries

Admin Panel & Access Control

• —Developed comprehensive React Admin panel for complete platform management
• —Implemented granular Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) system supporting multiple user types: super admins, IAMJ employees, editors, reviewers, and authors
• —All 17 modules are accessible as resources in the admin panel, with edit/delete/create capabilities controlled by user permissions
• —Deployed admin panel on AWS amplify for fast global delivery with automatic deployments
• —Managed DNS routing through Route 53 self-hosted zone for both main platform and admin subdomain

Database Migration & Optimization

• —Migrated from MySQL to PostgreSQL with complete data transformation, restructuring legacy schemas following database normalization principles (3NF)
• —Extracted text content from thousands of legacy PDF articles using custom regex-based OCR logic
• —Implemented full-text search using PostgreSQL vectors (pg_trgm), enabling researchers to discover relevant articles 10x faster with semantic search capabilities

SEO Optimization at Scale

• —Implemented comprehensive SEO optimization for 14,000+ research articles using Next.js metadata API
• —Dynamically generated meta tags, Open Graph tags, and structured data (JSON-LD) for each article using extracted keywords and full-text content
• —Leveraged article keywords and full-text search data to create highly relevant, search engine-friendly metadata
• —Implemented proper canonical URLs, sitemap generation, and robots.txt optimization

Manuscript Management System

• —Developed comprehensive manuscript submission portal from scratch, handling the entire peer review lifecycle
• —Built automated reviewer assignment system that matches manuscripts to reviewers based on subject matter expertise
• —Implemented complete review workflow: submission → peer assignment → review → approval/rejection → publication
• —Integrated payment gateway for article processing charges
• —Created automated email notification system to keep authors informed of manuscript status changes throughout the review process

Performance & Scalability

• —Architected background worker service for handling blocking operations (email delivery, PDF text extraction) to keep the main application responsive
• —Implemented job queues for asynchronous processing of resource-intensive tasks

AWS Cloud Infrastructure & DevOps

I designed and implemented a production-grade AWS infrastructure with a strong focus on security, scalability, and cost optimization:

Core Infrastructure

• —ECS with Application Load Balancer for container orchestration and high availability
• —Amazon RDS (PostgreSQL) for managed database with automated backups
• —S3 + CloudFront for document storage with global CDN caching, reducing latency for international users
• —ECR as private Docker registry for container images
• —AWS amplify for admin panel hosting with automatic deployments from Git
• —Route 53 for DNS management with self-hosted zone configuration for main domain and admin subdomain routing

Security Architecture

• —Placed backend services and RDS in private subnets with no direct internet access
• —Initially faced connectivity issues to AWS services (ECR, CloudWatch, Secrets Manager, SES, S3) from private subnet
• —Implemented VPC Endpoints to enable private connectivity, but this increased costs to $93/month
• —Cost optimization breakthrough: Replaced expensive VPC endpoints with fck-NAT running on t4g.nano instance, reducing monthly NAT costs from $93 to just $4 (96% cost reduction) while maintaining security posture

DevOps & Monitoring

• —Built CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions for automated testing and deployment of backend services
• —AWS amplify automatic deployments for admin panel with preview environments
• —CloudWatch integration for centralized logging and application monitoring
• —AWS SES for transactional email delivery with bounce/complaint handling
• —AWS Secrets Manager for secure storage and rotation of sensitive credentials and API keys

Impact

• —100x increase in Google Search impressions: From less than 5,000/month to over 500,000/month
• —Optimized 14,000+ articles with dynamic metadata, keywords, and structured data
• —Dramatically improved organic reach and discoverability for medical research content
• —Transformed user experience with modern, fast, SEO-friendly interface
• —Empowered IAMJ staff with powerful admin tools for efficient platform management
• —Enabled efficient manuscript discovery through full-text search
• —Automated review workflow, reducing administrative overhead by 70%
• —Reduced operational costs by 96% through infrastructure optimization (fck-NAT implementation)
• —Achieved enterprise-grade security while maintaining cost efficiency
• —Built scalable infrastructure supporting 100x traffic growth

Tech Stack

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