Open-Source Genome Analysis Software Developed

(James. J. Caras, National Science Foundation)

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of Yeshiva University in Bronx, New York have written software to make the analysis of genomic data easier for fellow researchers. The findings appeared last month in the journal Bioinformatics.

Julien Lajugie and Eric Bouhassira developed the open-source software, called GenPlay, to help biologists analyze raw genomics data themselves, without having to call in specialized data analysts. While as many as a dozen other genome browsers are available, Bouhassira says GenPlay lets “biologists take control of their own data by providing continuous visual feedback together with extremely rapid browsing at every decision point during an analysis.”

GenPlay is written in Java and, say the developers, supported on all major operating systems. The software recognizes common genomic data formats from micro-array or sequencing based platforms and offers a library of operations to process raw data into visualized tracks. GenPlay displays these tracks to summarize gene structure, gene expression, repeat families, and CPG islands.

Screen shot of GenPlay; click on image for full-size display (Albert Einstein College of Medicine)

The program’s Web site has instructions and demos, and the source code is available for download.

Read more: Online Cancer Genomics Tool for Clinicians Unveiled

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