Title: Biowire.com

URL: http://www.biowire.com

Date Reviewed:5/21/01

Description: Biowire.com is a site that offers reviews of laboratory products (from the common plasmid DNA preps to fancy real-time PCR machines)as well as services offered by companies (peptide synthesis, sequence analysis,...). The reviews are written by other researchers (they try to only allow reviews coming from research institutions). They also offer a DNA analysis tools package (Jellyfish)that allows connections to do NCBI blast searches, determine restriction enzyme cutting points, design primers and do drag and drop alignments, all these in a nice graphical interface. The drawback is that these services require the downloading of the software to your computer while other websites would offer that on the web. However, the interface is nice enough to be worth it and offers a good way of keeping together several sequences related to your project.
Strengths: It's a good site to check when you want to find out what's the best kit, machine or service to use for your purpose. One of its strengths is that it actually shows all the reviews on the tool you are interested in allowing you to determine how important it is to your specific variant of the application.

Weaknesses: Not all products you may be interested in are there or have been reviewed. The fact that it is a researcher input-based site makes it sometimes incomplete. However, you can suggest products to be reviewed if they are not there.

Comprehensiveness: Covers a lot of products, though not all of them are there or have been reviewed

Timeliness: It's quite fast

Ease of Use: Very easy and straightforward to use

Responsiveness: The results are clear and easy to search for

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Overall Evaluation: 4 stars

Reviewer: Mireia Guerau

Email: mireiaguerau@hotmail.com