Data Collections
Pat Gunn here.
BioPerl is an opensource project to provide a rich set of interfaces to retrieve and manipulate BioInformatics data. BioInformatics is a field concerned with computer cataloguing and modelling of biological data, covering things from genetic sequences to proteins. While modelling can be done locally, the governments/universities of Europe and the United States (and possibly other areas) have done a lot to put together amazing resources online, gratis, for researchers and other interested folk. Unlike many areas of academia, BioInformatics is a young field that’s deeply computer-centric — there’s a lot that suitably biology-knowledgable geeks and suitably compuer-savvy biologists have yet to do. The BioPerl pages are, appropriately, in a Wiki — there’s a lot of enabling technology out there that’s waiting to happen — it’s an exciting time for the field.
It makes one wonder if the open community will ever produce something that will replace LexisNexis and WestLaw in the legal field. “Getting there first” is probably just as important between the legal and technology fields.
