You see, for the past couple of years, I’ve been a bit frustrated because OS X does not come with a whole lot of Perl modules pre-installed, and for all I googled, I couldn’t find an “idiot’s” guide for moderately-savvy-but-not-expert users like myself to install modules and dependencies on demand.

The only instructions I could find point to Fink, which basically installs modules in a path that isn’t included in the Perl @INC variable, meaning you have to manually specify the full path to the modules in every script — which is not a lot of fun if you’re developing on OS X and deploying on Red Hat, for instance.

Moreover, Fink doesn’t seem to make every module available, and it’s not very easy to determine which Fink package you need to install if you need a particular module.

So, with a script that called on several apparently unavailable modules, and a deadline looming, I finally decided to suck it up and figure out how to use CPAN to install them:

1) Make sure you have the Apple Developer Tools (XCode) installed.

These are on one of your install discs, or available as a huge but free download from the Apple Developer Connection [free registration required] or the Mac App Store. I thought I had them, but apparently when we upgraded that computer to Tiger, they went missing.

If you don’t have this stuff installed, your installation will fail with errors about unavailable commands.

1.5) Install Command Line Tools (Recent XCode versions only)

(Thank you to Tom Marchioro for informing me about this step.)

Older versions of XCode installed the command line tools (which are required to properly install CPAN modules) by default, but apparently newer ones do not. To check whether you have the command line tools already installed, run the following from the Terminal:

$ which make

This command checks the system for the “make” tool. If it spits out something like /usr/bin/make you’re golden and can skip ahead to Step 2. If you just get a new prompt and no output, you’ll need to install the tools:

1. Launch XCode and bring up the Preferences panel.
2. Click on the Downloads tab
3. Click to install the Command Line Tools

If you like, you can run which make again to confirm that everything’s installed correctly.

2) Configure CPAN.

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e shell

perl> o conf init

This will prompt you for some settings. You can accept the defaults for almost everything (just hit “return”). The two things you must fill in are the path to make (which should be /usr/bin/make or the value returned when you run which make from the command line) and your choice of CPAN mirrors (which you actually choose don’t really matter, but it won’t let you finish until you select at least one). If you use a proxy or a very restrictive firewall, you may have to configure those settings as well.

If you skip Step 2, you may get errors about make being unavailable.

3) Upgrade CPAN

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Bundle::CPAN'

Don’t forget the sudo, or it’ll fail with permissions errors, probably when doing something relatively unimportant like installing man files.

This will spend a long time downloading, testing, and compiling various files and dependencies. Bear with it. It will prompt you a few times about dependencies. You probably want to enter “yes”. I agreed to everything it asked me, and everything turned out fine. YMMV of course. If everything installs properly, it’ll give you an “OK” at the end.

4) Install your modules. For each module….

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Bundle::Name'

or

$ sudo perl -MCPAN -e 'install Module::Name'

This will install the module and its dependencies. Nice, eh? Again, don’t forget the sudo.

The first time you run this after upgrading CPAN, it may prompt you to configure again (see Step 2). If you accept its offer to try to configure itself automatically, it may just run through everything without a problem.

There are a couple of potential pitfalls with specific modules (such as theLWP::UserAgent / HEAD issue), but most have workarounds, and I haven’t run into anything that wasn’t easily recoverable.

And that’s it!

Did you find this useful? Is there anything I missed?

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - 695 562

Traineeship on Bioinformatics(2)

First class M.Sc. Bioinformatics/ Agriculture/ Botany/ Biotechnology @ Rs.8000

Those candidates who fulfill the above criteria may attend a walk PCC Coordinator in-interview on 28th November 2016 at Saraswathy Thangavelu center, JNTBGRI, Puthenthope, Thiruvananthapuram between at 10.00 am and 2.00 pm with all the relevant document and testimonials.

No TA/DA will be given to candidates for attending the interview.

More Info : http://jntbgri.res.in/downloads/traineeship_notification.pdf

This collection highlights important statistical issues that biologists should be aware of and provides practical advice to help them improve the rigor of their work.

Nature Methods' Points of Significance column on statistics explains many key statistical and experimental design concepts. Other resources include an online plotting tool and links to statistics guides from other publishers.

Address of the bookmark: http://www.nature.com/collections/qghhqm

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS:
We are looking for a motivated candidate with keen interest in bioinformatics and microbial genome evolution. The candidate must have a Master’s Degree in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Computer Science, Microbiology, Biology or a related field with good academic record.

DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS
Hands on research experience on handling next generation sequencing data and phylogenetic reconstruction methods. Excellent programming skills (Perl/Python/Java/Php) and experience in working on Unix/Linux platform is preferred. Furthermore; good knowledge is required in statistics (R/Matlab) and the application of bioinformatics analysis tools.

AGE:
Below 28 years as on 15th November, 2016.

EMOLUMENTS:
Rs. 25,000 + 20% HRA for NET/GATE qualified and Post Graduate in Professional Degree course qualified candidates and
Rs. 12,000/- + 20% HRA for others.

DURATION:
Initial appointment will be given for one year and further extension will be based on the performance till termination of the project.
Only those fulfilling the above criteria need apply and will be called for interview. In the event of more than 10 candidates being short-listed by screening the applications, a written test will be conducted before the selection interview and only those who are successful in the written test will be interviewed. No TA/ DA will be given for appearing in the interview.

Suitably qualified candidates may send applications in the prescribed format (Download here) with a photograph, a copy of full resume indicating the percentage of Marks obtained and attested photocopies of credentials & experience to reach the undersigned on or before 15th November, 2016. Envelopes must be superscripted with abbreviated title of the project, advertisement number and job title. Selection to the position will not entitle the candidate to any future positions at RGCB (permanent or otherwise). As with all project positions at RGCB, the position will be co terminus with end of the project.

Please bookmarks your favourate biostatistics books in commend sectons ...

Address of the bookmark: http://www.cos.ufrj.br/~bioestatistica/livros/Introduction%20to%20Biostatistics.pdf

Research Assistant Bioinformatics recruitment in National Institute Of Cancer Prevention & Research (ICMR) on Contract basis
Project entitled: “Next generation EGFR inhibitor identification using ligand based QSAR technique”

Essential: M.Sc. in Bioinformatics or related field. Desirable: Experience in QSAR and structure based drug designing.
Age: 28 years
No.of Post: 1

Pay Scale : Rs.27000

Application format is attached and should be sent by post to Dr. Subhash M Agarwal, Scientist D, Division of Bioinformatics, National Institute of Cancer Prevention & Research (ICMR), Plot No. I-7, Sector-39, Noida 201301 (U.P).

More at http://www.icmr.nic.in/icmrnews/NICPR_Advertisement%20for%20RA.pdf

Address of the bookmark: http://sb.nhri.org.tw/CISA/en/CISA

This project is part of a larger Genome Canada project on genetics and physiology of adaptation to climate change in rainbow trout, and the population genomics component is in the labs of Eric Taylor and Michael Whitlock. The landscape genomics component primarily involves whole genome sequencing approaches to understanding the genomic basis of adaptation to features of habitat, but also to provide insights into phylogeography and the influence of watershed structure on population subdivision in rainbow trout. A PhD in a related field with expertise in basic theory and bioinformatic analysis of population genomics data is required.

The position is available for one year with renewal for up to three additional years. Salary is $55,000 per year plus benefits. To apply, please send a brief cover letter summarizing your qualifications for the position, a CV, and the names, addresses, phone numbers and emails of three references.

Review of applications will begin January 16, 2017. Address application materials to etaylor@zoology.ubc.ca to whom any questions can also be addressed. etaylor@zoology.ubc.ca

Progressive Cactus is a whole-genome alignment package.

Requirements

• git
• gcc 4.2 or newer
• python 2.7
• wget
• 64bit processor and build environment
• 150GB+ of memory on at least one machine when aligning mammal-sized genomes; less memory is needed for smaller genomes.
• Parasol or SGE for cluster support.
• 750M disk space

Instructions

IMPORTANT NOTE: Progressive Cactus does not presently support installation into paths that contain spaces. Until this is resolved, you can use a softlink as a workaround: ln -s "path with spaces" "installation path without spaces"

In the parent directory of where you want Progressive Cactus installed:

git clone git://github.com/glennhickey/progressiveCactus.git
cd progressiveCactus
git pull
git submodule update --init
make

It is also convenient to add the location of progressiveCactus/bin to your PATH environment variable. In order to run the included tools (ex hal2maf) in the submodules/ directory structure, first source progressiveCactus/environment to load the installed environment.

If any errors occur during the build process, you are unlikely to be able to use the tool. Please submit a GitHub issue so we can help out: not only will you help yourself, but others who wish to use the tool as well.

Note that all dependencies are also built and included in the submodules/ directory. This increases the size and build time but greatly simplifies installation and version management. The installation does not create or modify any files outside the progressiveCactus/ directory.

Address of the bookmark: https://github.com/glennhickey/progressiveCactus

Tools

• Parsnp - Core-genome alignment and analysis
• Gingr - Interactive visualization of alignments, trees and variants
• HarvestTools - Archiving and postprocessing

Citation

Treangen TJ, Ondov BD, Koren S, Phillippy AM. The Harvest suite for rapid core-genome alignment and visualization of thousands of intraspecific microbial genomes. Genome Biology, 15 (11), 1-15 [PDF]

Address of the bookmark: http://harvest.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html