March 15, 2005 (Vol. 25, No. 6)
Rating:
Strong Points: Cool tools
Weak Points: Narrow Focus
Summary:
Two young scientists working at The Netherlands Cancer Institute back in the 1990s were such Mac fanatics that they were given the nicknames of Mek and Tosj (a Dutch pronunciation of Macintosh). Fanaticism gave way to creativity and today the two young scientists are the proud creators of four Mac programs in the last three years: LabAssistant (experimental organizer), EnzymeX (restriction enzyme tool), iRNAi (design of oligonucleotides for use in RNA Interference), and 4Peaks (visualization function for DNA sequences, along with BLAST searches). While not by any means comprehensive in nature, the tools are useful in the lab environment and, best of all, free.