Overview

Take Control of Your Data and Use Python with Confidence Requiring no prior programming experience, Managing Your Biological Data with Python empowers biologists and other life scientists to work with biological data on their own using the Python language. The book teaches them not only how to program but also how to manage their data. It shows how to read data from files in different formats, analyze and manipulate the data, and write the results to a file or computer screen. The first part of the text introduces the Python language and teaches readers how to write their first programs. The second part presents the basic elements of the language, enabling readers to write small programs independently. The third part explains how to create bigger programs using techniques to write well-organized, efficient, and error-free code. The fourth part on data visualization shows how to plot data and draw a figure for an article or slide presentation. The fifth part covers the Biopython programming library for reading and writing several biological file formats, querying the NCBI online databases, and retrieving biological records from the web. The last part provides a cookbook of 20 specific programming recipes, ranging from secondary structure prediction and multiple sequence alignment analyses to superimposing protein three-dimensional structures. Tailoring the programming topics to the everyday needs of biologists, the book helps them easily analyze data and ultimately make better discoveries. Every piece of code in the text is aimed at solving real biological problems.

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9781322612690

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Reviews

a significant step forward The book is cleverly designed to cover a wide range of subjects in a pleasant, easy-to-follow sequence of chapters. These have been carefully prepared so that the minimum level of interdependence is kept, making it possible to begin working at virtually any level without falling into intricate cross-references. A beginner will find the first chapters quite welcoming while a person with medium or even high levels of programming experience can easily find a suitable entry point in the middle.The book is written using an entertaining style that pushes the reader into a naturally built engaging experience the authors have chosen a collection of underlying subject areas that cover a very wide variety of interests, ensuring that mixed audiences are kept engaged. In that sense, the content becomes adaptable to the wide diversity of learners that are found in today's communities of specialised biologists. also usable as a reference guide, due to the richness of its worked examples that will prove valuable as seeds for code development for programmers at any level. as a single book to support learning Python for problem solvers in the life sciences, this book is certainly a very smart choice. It is also ready for creative teachers to develop more in the same direction. Pedro L. Fernandes, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia Having read Managing Your Biological Data with Python brings back memories of the times I started writing my first lines of code nearly a decade ago. As a beginning structural biologist without any coding experience, this book would have been a welcome companion to quickly get me started on my bioinformatical projects with Python. It is this, often pragmatic, attitude scientists have towards programming that makes Python the language of choice for many. A clear syntax, powerful build-in functions and a lively ecosystem of user contributed modules allow you to do advanced things with only little lines of code.

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