Improving access to bioinformatics tools and software in Australia

Finding the right computational tools or software for your research can be frustrating. Which tools do what, where can you find them, and which high end computers can you access? 

Since 2021, Australian BioCommons has worked with our infrastructure partners to pull together a convenient list of the tools and software that are available to Australian life science researchers. As part of our ongoing efforts to facilitate simple access to and reuse of existing digital research infrastructure, the Bioinformatics ToolFinder offers a landscape view of what’s out there already. 

ToolFinder has undergone significant ‘under the hood’ changes to make your life easier. ToolFinder 2.0 allows you to filter by research topic according to EDAM ontology, plus free text search across the whole table for tool names, descriptions, licence types, and compute providers. You can even customise your personal view of ToolFinder by adding or removing columns from the table. 

Only looking for tools that have a container? Be sure to use the BioContainers column in your view. Already know the particular tool you need for your analysis? You can search for the tool’s availability and find which versions are installed at various computational facilities. Is your favourite tool not installed where you need it? Not to worry, ToolFinder 2.0 has links for you to request tool installation across Galaxy Australia, NCI, Pawsey and QRIS-Cloud. 

With all these search and sorting improvements made, you’ll quickly narrow down to the tool or software you need among the 600+ entries.
Visit the refreshed ToolFinder now, and let us know how it goes!