最近无意中在微软网站下的Microsoft Research上看到看到一项Microsoft Biology Initiative(简称MBI,ybzhao在PLoB这里暂且将其翻译成:“微软生物计划”)的project。按照MBI网站上介绍微软生物计划是微软研究院致力于将新的技术和工具应用于生物信息学和生物学研究。这个计划包含两个部分,其一是.NET生物(以前的Microsoft Biology Foundation【MBF】)另外一个是为微软生物工具(Microsoft Biology Tools 【MBT】)。
个人认为:有了这些计划,至少以后再开发一些基于windows平台的软件就会容易简单的多了,起码在写相关程序的时候有很强大的库可以利用了。可能我们做生物信息的现在习惯于在服务器上基于命令界面跑程序,但是终究还是有许多生物其他专业方向的同学(包括刚接触生物信息的同学),对于命令界面的操作多少有一些不太习惯。同时有了这些平台对于开发一些生物信息可视化软件业轻松很多了。前段时间与师弟合作开发一款基因组分析的可视化软件,为了跨平台同时提高计算效率选择了C++下的qt。着实费了不少功夫在qt上,如若不是为了让这款软件跨平台,用c#省心多了。
附录一(关于微软生物计划):
The Microsoft Biology Initiative (MBI) is a Microsoft Research effort to bring new technology and tools to bioinformatics and biology research. This initiative is comprised of two primary components, .NET Bio (formerly Microsoft Biology Foundation [MBF]) and the Microsoft Biology Tools (MBT).
.NET Bio (formerly Microsoft Biology Foundation)
.NET Bio is a language-neutral bioinformatics toolkit built as an extension to the Microsoft .NET Framework—initially aimed at the area of Genomics research. Currently, it implements a range of parsers for common bioinformatics file formats; a range of algorithms for manipulating DNA, RNA, and protein sequences; and a set of connectors to biological web services such as NCBI BLAST. .NET Bio is available under an open source license, and executables, source code, demo applications, and documentation are freely downloadable from the Codeplex site.
The Microsoft Biology Tools (MBT) are a collection of tools that enable biology and bioinformatics researchers to be more productive in making scientific discoveries. The tools in this catalog are free and, when available, include links to the source code and open source collaboration projects.
更多关于微软生物计划信息请访问器官方网站:http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/bio/default.aspx
附录二(关于qt):
qt是一个跨平台C++图形用户界面应用程序开发框架。更多可以阅读百度百科:http://baike.baidu.com/view/23681.htm。对qt有兴趣的可以继续关注一下。