What is "bioclipse"

The Bioclipse project is a Java-based, open source, visual platform for chemo- and bioinformatics based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP). It gained scripting functionality in 2009.

Like any RCP application, Bioclipse uses a plugin architecture that inherits basic functionality and visual interfaces from Eclipse, such as help system, software updates, preferences, cross-platform deployment etc. Via its plugins, Bioclipse provides functionality for chemo- and bioinformatics, and extension points that easily can be extended by other, possibly proprietary, plugins to provide additional functionality.

The first stable release of Bioclipse includes a Chemistry Development Kit (CDK) plugin to provide a chemoinformatic backend, a Jmol plugin for 3D-visualization of molecules, and a BioJava plugin for sequence analysis. Recently, the R platform, using StatET, and OpenTox were added.

Bioclipse is developed as a collaboration between the Proteochemometric Group, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Sweden, the Christoph Steinbeck Group at the European Bioinformatics Institute, and the Analytical Chemistry Department at Leiden University, but also includes extensions developed at other academic institutes, including the Karolinska Institutet and Maastricht University. The development is backed up by the International Bioclipse Association.