Applicability of the .NET Platform to Bioinformatics Research. A current look at the field of bioinformatics will reveal that it is a field that is largely dominated by the Linux operating system, as well as by programming languages such as Perl, Python, and Java. Windows and its associated native application development platforms are not in widespread use among present-day bioinformatics practitioners. In fact, the usage of Linux and other open source technologies will likely remain the dominant platforms upon which most novel and/or large-scale bioinformatics research is conducted. Scientific computing of all types has deep-seated roots in Unix and its derivatives, and as a result is very much dependent on code bases that are written with *nix platforms in mind.