Sequencher uw upgrade#

First, users can add new features, and upgrade existing ones, simply by obtaining new modules. Modular implementations offer a number of benefits. In contrast, all-in-one applications such as Toronto-based Redasoft's Visual Cloning 2000 and Accelrys' OMIGA and MacVector contain all features in a single, integrated program. Modular packages, such as Bethesda, Md.-based Informax Inc.'s Vector NTI Suite, Durham, N.C.-based Scientific & Educational Software (Sci-Ed)'s Clone Manager Suite, and Madison, Wis.-based DNASTAR's Lasergene consist of a basic 'container' program to which specific analysis functions are added by installing additional modules. Total solution packages come in two basic varieties: modular or 'all-in-one' applications. They can also be Web-based or installed on a local machine or server. Programmers can create sequence analysis software packages in any style they choose, such as total solutions that perform a variety of analyses, or niche programs intended to solve a particular problem. In many respects, however, Web-based tools have supplanted standard desktop applications, and the nature of these programs is changing to reflect this trend. The nature of these programs has changed too, having evolved from simple utilities to applications capable of assisting in experimental planning, troubleshooting, and reagent ordering. A number of companies now supply extraordinarily powerful general-purpose and niche market applications that can ease many routine molecular biology analysis and management tasks. But many users now interact with it through a Web interface, called SeqWeb, which hides the various programs' nuts-and-bolts behind a pleasing facade. The Wisconsin Package, now offered by San Diego-based Accelrys, currently consists of over 140 separate applications, according to Kevin Kendall, desktop applications product manager at Accelrys. Disparate command line-based utilities have, for the most part, been replaced by highly integrated applications with graphical user interfaces. Unfortunately, using a variety of separate applications to perform various tasks is tedious, and it is possible that one program will not be able to read the output of another program.īut times have changed. The 'GCG Wisconsin Package,' developed by Genetics Computer Group (GCG) at the University of Wisconsin, was a popular suite of such utilities. In the 1980s, before graphical operating systems became standard, these packages primarily consisted of small, command line-based applications. Like sequencing technologies themselves, sequence analysis software has evolved substantially from its original incarnation. (See related story, Chromosome 22 Provides Human Genome Preview, on page 24) Without this latter development, researchers would be hard pressed to read and understand these gigabytes of data-the equivalent of having an encrypted encyclopedia without a deciphering key. The field could not be where it is today without progress in automated sequencing methods and in software to interpret, annotate, and manage the voluminous data that these automated sequencers chum out. Few biological fields have benefited from technological advances as much as genomics.