5 Great Online Tools for Biologists

Biology (and its related fields) are less and less frequently sciences that must only be studied in the field. There are a great number of resources online that can aid biologists and researchers in expanding the productivity of their research. Here are 5 great online tools for biologists and researchers.

NCBI BLAST Database

1. BLAST Database

The NCBI BLAST database is invaluable to anyone doing any sort of genetic or genomic analysis. Simply type in your gene sequence, an accession number, or gene identifier and the database will spit out to you (in whatever organism you choose; there are many) tons of useful data to be used in your research. Web-savvy biologists will generally be found BLASTing their sequences before beginning any major experiment.

Fields: Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics, Microbiology

Invitrogen Primer Designer

2. Invitrogen Primer Designer

When ordering or designing primers there’s really no bigger company to go to than Invitrogen. Instead of spending time designing your own primers though, just plug your sequence (or any part of it) in to their primer designer and out comes optimized primers ready for your use. When you’re done just take the information and directly order your primers at their very affordable sub-$1 prices.

Fields: Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics

PubMed

3. PubMed

Another service offered by the NCBI is the PubMed publications database. Home to over 18 million science-related journal publications, the PubMed website is most likely already a frequently visited web resource if your involved in any sort of science research (still worth mentioning though, right?). PubMed will provide a relevant journal article for virtually any life science-related topic you can think of. Additionally, it will give you citation counts and abstracts as well as lead you to locations where you can read full text or download pdfs (more often when you are accessing from an academia-based internet connection).

Fields: Any life-science related field

Web of Science

4. Web of Science

The ISI Web of Science (part of the Web of Knowledge search engine) is an arguably more powerful and versatile version of PubMed, though you must have a subscription (almost always academia-sourced) to access the service. Web of Science offers many tools to tweak and adjust your searches, even giving you statistics about your search queries, such as the percentage of papers found for a specific author within a keyword, etc. If you are a student or researcher in an academic institution and you aren’t already using the Web of Science when searching for journal articles, start now.

Fields: Any life-science related field

Nikon's MicroscopyU

5. MicroscopyU

Less a tool and more an incredibly valuable, never-ending wealth of useful information and resources, Nikon’s MicroscopyU website will help any biologist and microscopist to design refined and well-planning microscopy experiments. The veritable treasure trove of information that can be found on this website is immeasurable. Whether you need just a simple tutorials or introduction or a simulated interface of a complex instrument, the MicroscopyU website likely has it.

Fields: Microscopy (Confocal, Epifluorescent, etc..), Cell Biology, Microbiology, Developmental Biology

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