April 15, 2017 (Vol. 37, No. 8)
URL:
http://www.genomespace.org
Rating:
Strong Points: Beautifully designed user interface, many bioinformatics tools
Weak Points: None
Summary:
Management of genomic data—such as file type conversions and data storage—can be quite cumbersome and can pose an obstacle to data analysis. GenomeSpace is a wonderful, online computational framework that bypasses these limitations and facilitates genomic analyses. The website provides users access to a number of externally hosted bioinformatics tools via a single, beautiful web interface. In addition, the framework uses cloud-based storage, giving users the option to use either GenomeSpace cloud storage or personal Amazon cloud storage. Twenty-one tools are available through GenomeSpace (though the website also provides external links to the tools if users wish to go straight to the source). The documentation section of the site includes valuable tutorials that describe how to navigate the user interface (which requires user registration to access) and the functionality of the various analysis tools.