geWorkbench (genomics Workbench) is a Java-based open-source platform for integrated genomics. Using a component architecture it allows individually developed plug-ins to be configured into complex bioinformatic applications. At present there are more than 70 available plug-ins supporting the visualization and analysis of gene expression and sequence data. Example use cases include:

• loading data from local or remote data sources.
• visualizing gene expression, molecular interaction networks, protein sequence and protein structure data in a variety of ways.
• providing access to client- and server-side computational analysis tools such as t-test analysis, hierarchical clustering, self organizing maps, regulatory neworks reconstruction, BLAST searches, pattern/motif discovery, etc.
• validating computational hypothesis through the integration of gene and pathway annotation information from curated sources as well as through Gene Ontology enrichment analysis.

genSpace is a suite of collaboration plugins to geWorkbench aimed to support knowledge sharing among computational biologists based on popular social networking motifs.  genSpace logs all user activities to a backend server, and data mines this information to recommends tools and workflows (sequences of analysis and visualization tools) in “people like you” style.  It also supports Facebook-like friends (direct collaborators) and networks (colleagues from same lab, institution or community), presence facilities including available/away/offline and live activity feed, and a shared research notebook that documents the details of all analyses. The introduction of genSpace web services can be found here.