The Bioclipse project is aimed at creating a Java-based, open source, visual platform for chemo- and bioinformatics based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP). Bioclipse, as any RCP application, is based on a plugin architecture that inherits basic functionality and visual interfaces from Eclipse, such as help system, software updates, preferences, cross-platform deployment etc.

Bioclipse will provide functionality for chemo- and bioinformatics, and extension points that easily can be extended by plugins to provide added functionality. The first version of Bioclipse includes a CDK-plugin (bc_cdk) to provide a chemoinformatic backend, a Jmol-plugin (bc_jmol) for 3D-visualization and a general logging plugin. To stay updated on upcoming features, releases, new plugins etc, please register for the mailing list bioclipse-announce. The development is best followed on the Bioclipse Wiki where we document the progress and ideas of the development on a daily basis.

Bioclipse is develped as a collaboration between the Proteochemometric Group , Dept. of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Research Group for Molecular Informatics at Cologne University Bioinformatics Center (CUBIC). The contributors can be found here.

If you would like to contribute to bioclipse; maybe you have some code that you would like to integrate or would like to become a developer, please do not hesitate to contact us on the mailinglist bioclipse-devel.

Bioclipse is released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) + exception, see the License Statement, putting no constraints on choice of backend and/or license for creating plugins for Bioclipse; it is totally open for both open source plugins as well as commercial.

If you use Bioclipse in your research, please cite:

Bioclipse: An open source workbench for chemo- and bioinformatics
Ola Spjuth, Tobias Helmus, Egon L Willighagen, Stefan Kuhn, Martin Eklund, Johannes Wagener, Peter Murray-Rust, Christoph Steinbeck, Jarl E.S. Wikberg
BMC Bioinformatics 2007, 8:59 (22 February 2007)