Major advances like the Human Genome Project show that programming is becoming as central to the biological sciences as it has been to physics or astronomy. As the field of bioinformatics picks up speed, biologists are more and more eager to add programming ability to their laboratory toolkits, and Perl leads the field as the language of choice for biological data analysis. Beginning Perl for Bioinformatics is a practical introduction to biological programming using Perl, the most popular language for bioinformatic analysis. Perl is strong in precisely what is needed to analyze biological data: string handling, text processing, networking, ability to control other programs, and rapid prototyping. Using this book as a springboard, biologists with no previous programming skills will be able to get up to speed quickly and embark on successful programming projects.