By popular demand, DNASIS SmartNote now supports sequence annotation. Annotations in GenBank files are automatically imported, and you can also add annotations manually by clicking the “Edit” link next to each sequence in your database, and specifying name, type, range and orientation.
New this week:
1. You can now export individual results (summaries or raw) from your lab notebook as PDF files or print them out.
2. The PrimerX tool has been added to support primer design for mutagenesis. It even works with multiple sequences!
3. You can now extract email addresses from your GMail or Yahoo mail accounts to make it easier to invite your colleagues to collaborate with you through DNASIS SmartNote.
4. If you find yourself using the same tools frequently, you’ll love this feature: when it’s time to pick a tool for an analysis, you can now see the 5 most recently used tools listed at the very top and just click them to quickly launch the analysis.
Coming soon… an exciting new way to share data with colleagues!
New this week:
1. By popular demand, you can now import GenBank and multi-GenBank files into SmartNote, including those exported from other programs, such as DNASIS Max and Vector NTI.
2. We have added a new option for displaying the predicted amino acid sequence aligned with a DNA sequence. Use the ExPASy Translate tool and specify “Includes Nucleotide Sequence” for the “Output Format” option. Thank you, Jessica Min for this suggestion. This should help users who need to design primers for mutagenesis.
3. Support for IUPAC codes in sequences is also being added this week.
Please keep the feedback coming!
DNASIS SmartNote was recently released to a limited group of scientists and attracted some great feedback. Here’s a quick summary:
Some users said they needed more help getting started using it. This is not surprising, since DNASIS SmartNote’s design is innovative in two ways – it’s a meta-application (an application that uses other applications) and it’s also the first bioinformatics tool we know of that combines a lab notebook, sequence analysis and social networking.
Others said they want to be able to import sequences in formats other than FASTA. I’m happy to report that GenBank support will soon be available on the live site.
Finally, we are starting to get requests to support specific workflows, such as designing primers for mutagenesis. One user suggested adding a view that shows both DNA and protein sequences. We would love to hear from other DNASIS SmartNote users so we know where to focus our efforts to best meet users’ needs. So please send us feedback or post to this shared blog. Together, we can make DNASIS SmartNote even better!
Collaboration is fundamental to life science research. Publications, conferences and lab meetings have their place, but most scientists would benefit from more granular collaboration with a wider audience. That’s why we’ve added a blog to SmartNote – to foster a community of users who help each other get the most out of SmartNote and discuss ideas that can help their research.
Use this blog to post:
Then, invite your colleagues to read and comment on your posts. The most popular posts will automatically be listed on this page, so you can easily access the information that others find most useful or interesting.So go ahead and get started!
