The free/open source approach has grown from a minor activity to become a significant producer of robust, task-orientated software for a wide variety of situations and applications. To life science informatics groups, these systems present an appealing proposition - high quality software at a very attractive price. Open source software in life science research considers how industry and applied research groups have embraced these resources, discussing practical implementations that address real-world business problems.

The book is divided into four parts. Part one looks at laboratory data...