Editing Biopython (section)

== History ==

Biopython development began in 1999 and it was first released in July 2000.<ref name="Chapman2004">{{Citation | first = Brad | last = Chapman |title=The Biopython Project: Philosophy, functionality and facts |url=http://www.biopython.org/DIST/docs/presentations/biopython_exelixis.pdf |date=11 March 2004 |accessdate=11 September 2014}}</ref> It was developed during a similar time frame and with analogous goals to other projects that added bioinformatics capabilities to their respective programming languages, including [[BioPerl]], [[BioRuby]] and [[BioJava]]. Early developers on the project included Jeff Chang, Andrew Dalke and Brad Chapman, though over 100 people have made contributions to date.<ref name="Contributors">{{Citation |title=List of Biopython contributors |url=http://biopython.org/SRC/biopython/CONTRIB |accessdate=11 September 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20140911121354/http://biopython.org/SRC/biopython/CONTRIB |archivedate=11 September 2014 }}</ref> In 2007, a similar [[Python (programming language)|Python]] project, namely '''PyCogent''', was established.<ref>{{Cite journal
 | pmid = 17708774
| pmc = 2375001
| year = 2007
| last1 = Knight
| first1 = R
| title = Py ''Cogent'': A toolkit for making sense from sequence
| journal = Genome Biology
| volume = 8
| issue = 8
| pages = R171
| last2 = Maxwell
| first2 = P
| last3 = Birmingham
| first3 = A
| last4 = Carnes
| first4 = J
| last5 = Caporaso
| first5 = J. G.
| last6 = Easton
| first6 = B. C.
| last7 = Eaton
| first7 = M
| last8 = Hamady
| first8 = M
| last9 = Lindsay
| first9 = H
| last10 = Liu
| first10 = Z
| last11 = Lozupone
| first11 = C
| last12 = McDonald
| first12 = D
| last13 = Robeson
| first13 = M
| last14 = Sammut
| first14 = R
| last15 = Smit
| first15 = S
| last16 = Wakefield
| first16 = M. J.
| last17 = Widmann
| first17 = J
| last18 = Wikman
| first18 = S
| last19 = Wilson
| first19 = S
| last20 = Ying
| first20 = H
| last21 = Huttley
| first21 = G. A.
| doi = 10.1186/gb-2007-8-8-r171
| doi-access = free
}}</ref>

The initial scope of Biopython involved accessing, indexing and processing biological sequence files. While this is still a major focus, over the following years added modules have extended its functionality to cover additional areas of biology (see [[#Key features and examples|Key features and examples]]).

As of version 1.77, Biopython no longer supports Python 2.<ref name="Python27EoL">{{Citation | first = Chris | last = Daley |title=Biopython 1.77 released |url=https://www.open-bio.org/2020/05/25/biopython-1-77-released/ |accessdate=6 October 2021}}</ref>