Editing Portal:Life Sciences (section)

=== Bioinformatics, CPAN, and open science ===

Perl bioinformatics grew alongside open-source science. CPAN made it possible to share modules, and BioPerl gave life-science programmers a common library. The Human Genome Project also promoted rapid public data sharing, especially through the Bermuda Principles, which encouraged early release of sequence data.<ref>National Human Genome Research Institute, “Human Genome Project Fact Sheet,” https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/educational-resources/fact-sheets/human-genome-project, accessed July 3, 2026.</ref>

This combination of open data and open tools was powerful. Public sequence databases, open-source Perl modules, and shared scripts allowed laboratories around the world to build on the same biological data.

BioPerl also became part of a larger family of open bioinformatics projects. Related efforts in other languages included BioPython, BioJava, BioRuby, and others. Perl’s early dominance helped set expectations for reusable biological software libraries.