If you’re a biologist or researcher and you’d like to leverage Mac OS X for your sequencing needs, you might be interested in the latest version of MacVector. It’s now available from Accelrys, a subsidiary of Pharmacopeia, Inc. The new version is 7.1.
MacVector is a sequence analysis package that’s previously been available for PowerPC-based Macs running older versions of the Macintosh operating system. However, thanks to some Carbonization, the latest version runs natively on Mac OS X — and on Mac OS 8.6 and higher with the CarbonLib extensions installed.
The product provides sequence editing, PCR primer analysis, Internet database searches, protein analysis, and a wide variety of other functions. You can view the results of any analysis function in graphical or text format. You can also assemble consensus sequences for your sequencing projects with AssemblyLIGN, MacVector’s contig assembly module.
MacVector’s developer told MacCentral earlier this year that Mac OS X’s architectural improvements will benefit the software package greatly.
“Mac OS X will enable us to easily incorporate algorithms that were previously available only through high-end UNIX products such as GCG’s Wisconsin Package,” said Pharmacopeia COO Dr. Michael Stapleton. “In our ongoing MacVector development, we will take full advantage of Mac OS X’s built-in support for multiple processors, ability to run complex tasks in the background, and new portable graphics format; all of which will make MacVector an even more powerful sequence analysis tool for bench scientists.”
A trial version is available for download at the product Web site. (Thanks to MacCentral reader Jim Sutcliffe for the heads-up on this item.)