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Paperback | 2019
ISBN: 9780691182759 | $45 | £35
eBook | eISBN: 9780691183961

440 pp. | 8 x 10 | 7 b/w illus.

Learn how to analyze, visualize and publish large data sets

For graduate students and more seasoned biologists who want to make their analysis efficient, automated and reproducible.
About the Book →

Practice with relevant data

All examples and exercises use published data sets from a diverse array of biological disciplines.

Exercises and Solutions →

Build your computational toolbox

Unix, Git, Python, Regular expressions, R, LaTeX and sqlite
Table of Contents ↓

Use free software on Linux, Mac OS X or Windows

All the tools introduced in the book are free software. They have minimal requirements in terms of hardware, and work on any platform.
Setup →

For use in class or self-teaching

Provides an introduction to each tool and examples taken from across biology. The extensive reading list and the challenging exercises make it ideal for “flipped classroom" teaching.
Example Syllabi →

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A concise introduction to key computing skills for biologists

About the Authors
Download Example Chapter ↓

“Allesina and Wilmes dedicate their book to ‘all biologists who thought they couldn’t code’: we often thought we couldn’t for lack of comprehensive resources. Computing Skills for Biologists changes this situation and should find a home on every biologist’s bookshelf.”

Timothée Poisot

Professor, University of Montreal, Canada

“This book presents a toolbox that includes Python, Git, LaTeX, and SQL as well as R, and is aimed at graduate students in biology who have just realized that a few hundred megabytes of messy data are standing between them and their thesis. The authors present the basics of each subject clearly and concisely using real-world data analysis examples at every turn. They freely admit in the introduction that coverage will be broad and shallow, but that’s exactly what books like this should aim for, and they hit a bulls eye.” Full review

Greg Wilson

Co-founder of Software Carpentry

“This textbook helps advanced undergraduates and graduate students gain familiarity with computational skills that will allow them to do really useful research. The material tackled by the text is challenging, but Allesina and Wilmes have developed an effective way to help students learn. There isn’t anything else out there like it and I’m going to definitely adopt it for course use.”

Michael Alfaro

Professor, University of California, Los Angeles

“Computing Skills for Biologists is a valuable gift for students, and if it had been available when I was a student, I know I would have benefited greatly from it. This textbook looks into the craft of computational biology research, showing how it can be conducted with more efficiency and ease.”

Martin Rosvall

Professor, Umeå University, Sweden

“The computational skills a modern biologist requires are multifaceted, making it difficult to recommend a single text to support student learning. Allesina and Wilmes have risen to this challenge, providing a text which is pitched perfectly for the beginning student and provides a useful reference for the rest of us.” Full review

David Martin and Laura Pugh

The Biologist—Royal Society of Biology

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