![neb-enzyme-finder]](http://bitesizebio.s3.amazonaws.com/content/uploads/2010/10/neb-enzyme-finder.jpg "neb-enzyme-finder]")
In the time since Bala wrote his article for us about iPhone apps for bioscientists, many individuals and companies have jumped on the bandwagon to deliver some great new apps that you might find useful in the lab. Here’s my pick of the 10 best apps available at the moment:
1. Pubmed Library
Price $9.99/£5.99
With this app you can search pubmed AND organise your articles from your iPhone.
2. Biogene
Price: Free
Enter a gene symbol or gene name and BioGene will retrieve its info from Entrez Gene and links to references from Pubmed.
3. Alchemia
Price: $2.99/£1.79
A serious chemistry calculator that is packed with features. The most useful of these for biologists are the EA and molecular mass calculator for amino acids, polypeptides and proteins (just type in the peptide sequence) a terminology search facility that queries the IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Technology.
4. The Chemical Touch
Price: $0.99/£0.59
Get detailed info on amino acids (and elements from the periodic table) using this app’s really nice interface.
5. BioRad Real Time PCR
Price: Free
This app from BioRad provides qPCR tutorials, and interactive troubleshooting tool and a reagent selector which helps you find the best (BioRad) reagent for your experiment.
6. Promega
Price: Free
Despite it’s rather unimaginative title, the Promega app packs in a lot of great features. giving you access to molecular biology calculators, technical tips, protocols and multimedia presentations.
7. PCRCal
Price: $0.99/£0.59
A nice simple app for calculating the volumes needed to make a master mix for multiple PCR reaction. Just enter the volumes you want to use for the single reaction and the app will scale it up for the total number of reactions you specify.
8. NEB Tools
Price: Free
A nice app from NEB, which brings their most popular web tools, the enzyme finder and double digest buffer selector, to the IPhone.
9. Dilutions
Price: $0.99/£0.59
A rather eclectic set of dilution calculators for helping you with serial dilutions, making up SDS-PAGE gels and w/w w/v solutions.
10. Eurofins MWG Oligo Dilution Calculator
Price: Free
This is another simple app that you can use to determine how much volume is needed to dilute an oligo stock solution of higher concentration down to a specific lower concentration. Units for concentrations and volumes can be selected as preferred.
If you have any favorite IPhone/IPad apps that you use in the lab, or you use any of the above, please let us know in the comments!
I spotted our rotation student using NEB’s enzyme finder on her iPhone the other day. What a cool tool!
In June, BioKM http://www.biodata.com/ announced that the program now fully supports Apple’s iPad, and that it plans to launch several specifically designed applications for research labs. BioKM is a knowledge management service that helps researchers organize their materials and data. You can see the release here: http://blog.biodata.com/2010/06/13/the-ipad-makes-its-way-into-the-research-lab/
Eppendorf have a great app for converting RPM to RCF (free). Good if your lab uses Eppendorf centrifuges and rotors.
The users also have the option to wirelessly play and share multimedia files from using an iphone, ipod touch or ipad and enjoy a whole life..
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