I’m a neurosurgeon and researcher building an app to keep notes and their sources together

Over the past few months, a problem from my own research workflow has turned into an app.

As a neurosurgeon and researcher, I often found myself trying to reconnect things that belonged together: a reading note, the paper behind it, an image, a file, or an idea recorded on the move. Weeks later, finding the material was only half the challenge — remembering how my thinking had developed was the other half.

That’s why I started building Hikari Scribe.

It brings notes, journaling and research references into one workspace on iOS, iPadOS and macOS, with an Apple Watch companion for voice recording. It includes PubMed and OpenAlex search, Zotero integration, bibliographies and citations alongside your writing, and linked entries you can revisit on a timeline.

I’m now looking for early beta testers, particularly researchers, PhD students, clinicians and anyone who regularly works with scientific literature. But everyone is invited of course!

The first beta focuses on personal workflows. Collaboration is planned as the next step. For now, I’d love to understand what helps you move from reading a paper to developing your own ideas — and where Hikari could make that process easier.

Screenshots and the story behind the project:

https://hikariscribe.app/

If you’d like to try it or share feedback, please get in touch: feedback@hikariscribe.app

Thank you to anyone willing to give it a try or pass it along to a colleague.

#ResearchTools #AcademicWriting #iOS #iPadOS #macOS #HikariScribe