Biskit is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software package written in Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

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The package facilitates research in Structural bioinformatics

Structural bioinformatics

Structural bioinformatics is the branch of bioinformatics which is related to the analysis and prediction of the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules such as proteins, RNA, and DNA...

 and molecular modelling

Molecular modelling

Molecular modelling encompasses all theoretical methods and computational techniques used to model or mimic the behaviour of molecules. The techniques are used in the fields of computational chemistry, computational biology and materials science for studying molecular systems ranging from small...

. Biskit falls into two parts:

• an Object-oriented programming
  Object-oriented programming
  Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,...
  
   library for manipulating and analyzing macromolecular structures, Protein complex
  Protein complex
  A multiprotein complex is a group of two or more associated polypeptide chains. If the different polypeptide chains contain different protein domain, the resulting multiprotein complex can have multiple catalytic functions...
  
  es and Molecular dynamics
  Molecular dynamics
  Molecular dynamics is a computer simulation of physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a period of time, giving a view of the motion of the atoms...
  
   trajectories
  Trajectory
  A trajectory is the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time. The object might be a projectile or a satellite, for example. It thus includes the meaning of orbit—the path of a planet, an asteroid or a comet as it travels around a central mass...
  
  

• building on the library, a set of programs
  Computer program
  A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
  
   for solving specific tasks, for example, the automatic prediction of Protein structure
  Protein structure
  Proteins are an important class of biological macromolecules present in all organisms. Proteins are polymers of amino acids. Classified by their physical size, proteins are nanoparticles . Each protein polymer – also known as a polypeptide – consists of a sequence formed from 20 possible L-α-amino...
  
  s by Homology modeling
  Homology modeling
  Homology modeling, also known as comparative modeling of protein refers to constructing an atomic-resolution model of the "target" protein from its amino acid sequence and an experimental three-dimensional structure of a related homologous protein...
  
   or (an attempt at) the prediction of Protein complex
  Protein complex
  A multiprotein complex is a group of two or more associated polypeptide chains. If the different polypeptide chains contain different protein domain, the resulting multiprotein complex can have multiple catalytic functions...
  
   structures through flexible Protein-protein docking
  Protein-protein docking
  Macromolecular docking is the computational modelling of the quaternary structure of complexes formed by two or more interacting biological macromolecules...
  
  

The Biskit library delegates many calculations to more specialized third-party programs and currently wraps about 15 external applications. Examples are X-PLOR

X-PLOR

X-PLOR is a software package for computational structural biology originally developed by Axel Brunger at Yale University. It was first published in 1987 as an off-shoot of CHARMM - a similar program that ran on Cray supercomputers...

, Hex, T-Coffee

T-Coffee

T-Coffee is a multiple sequence alignment software using a progressive approach. It generates a library of pairwise alignments to guide the multiple sequence alignment...

, DSSP

DSSP (protein)

The DSSP algorithm is the standard method for assigning secondary structure to the amino acids of a protein, given the atomic-resolution coordinates of the protein...

 and MODELLER

MODELLER

MODELLER is a computer program used in producing homology models of protein tertiary structures as well as quaternary structures . It implements a technique inspired by nuclear magnetic resonance known as satisfaction of spatial restraints, by which a set of geometrical criteria are used to create...

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Biskit was originally developed at the Pasteur Institute

Pasteur Institute

The Pasteur Institute is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who made some of the greatest breakthroughs in modern medicine at the time, including pasteurization and vaccines for anthrax...

and the name Biskit refers to the title of the research group: "Unité de BioInformatique Structurale".