title: Bioboxes: standardised containers for interchangeable bioinformatics software.
abstract: Software is now both central and essential to modern biology, yet lack of availability, difficult installations, and complex user interfaces make software hard to obtain and use. Containerisation, as exemplified by the Docker platform, has the potential to solve the problems associated with sharing software. We propose bioboxes: containers with standardised interfaces to make bioinformatics software interchangeable.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Technology and Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Belmann
authors.affiliation: Computational Biology of Infection Research, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dröge
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Technology and Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany ; Computational Biology of Infection Research, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bremges
authors.affiliation: Computational Biology of Infection Research, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Alice C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: McHardy
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Technology and Center for Biotechnology, Bielefeld University, 33615 Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sczyrba
authors.affiliation: DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA 94598 USA.
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Barton
mesh_terms: D019295:Computational Biology; D012984:Software
keywords: Bioinformatics; Docker; Reproducibility; Software; Standards; Usability