[Bioperl-l] New to BioPerl

[holford.5@osu.edu]

Does a Perl script exist for such a job or would I need to develop one?

I am in the process of learning Perl and still very wet behind the ears.  I 
am a C/C++ programmer and I have been asked to develop a software program 
to automate a process.  This process deals with parsing blast 
output.  Since my background in not in Biology I will not attempt to 
paraphrase the request.  So here it is in its entirety.

"Do you know of a program that would allow or facilitate in silico
 > Northern (gene expression) analysis? What I would like to do is to take
 > a specific gene sequence and blast it against the soybean EST database
 > and then extract the hits below a certain E value into *categories*
 > (e.g., "roots", "inoculated", etc) based on the cDNA library
 > information for the particular EST in the text that accompanies the
 > blast output. It could also be done based on the cDNA library #
 > associated with the EST hits. This allows a quick determination of
 > whether a particular gene, for instance, is root specific in its
 > expression, etc. It would be extremely valuable to us in deciding what
 > genes to focus on (from a gene family, for instance) for expression
 > analysis with real life Northerns.
 > I think that such a program would be very valuable for alot of us!"

Thanking you in advance,

Ian