Online tutorial

EMBL-EBI, programmatically

Take a REST from manual searches

Time to complete:

> 3 hours

This course includes:

  • Activities
  • Videos

Written by:

Last reviewed:

February 2024


Creative Commons

All materials are free cultural works licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, except where further licensing details are provided.


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From BLAST searches to literature services, gene annotation and information on protein structure and function, large amounts of biological data can be accessed online with the click of a button. When it comes to repeated tasks with large volumes of data, the best way to get quick and automated access is to do it programmatically.

Feedback and help

Who is this course for?

This course consists of a series of recorded webinars as well as documentation, example scripts and live examples. You do not need to watch all of the webinars; you can dip in and out and watch only the webinars you are interested in.

For the introductory webinar all you need is an undergraduate understanding of biology. The resource focused webinars are more computationally advanced and you will need prior knowledge of programmatic access and common programming languages. If you are new to programmatic access we recommend that you watch the introductory webinar first.

What will I achieve?

By the end of the course you will be able to:

  • List available EMBL-EBI webservices
  • Describe processes that can be performed using EMBL-EBI RESTful APIs
  • Know where to find help, documentation and get support
  • Access example scripts

What resources do I need?

There are no specific resources required to watch the webinars, however some webinars have example scripts which may require further software installation.

DOI: 10.6019/TOL.EBIprogrammatically-w.2017.00001.1