PK.

Software · Desktop app

Python Lab

An interactive course that teaches Python to biologists with no programming experience, from the first print() to writing their own lab software. Every lesson is short, ties a concept to bench work, and ends with an exercise that runs real Python on your computer and checks itself, building up to complete tools for sequences, qPCR, growth curves and sequencing reads.

Download for Mac ↓
Python Lab screenshot: a lesson on parsing FASTA files into a dictionary, with the explanation on the left and a solved exercise, its check result and output on the right
Lesson 7.2: reading the genes of an example FASTA file into a dictionary, checked and marked correct.

What it does

Where it runs

A desktop app. Your code runs on your own computer with Python and its scientific libraries; progress is saved there too. Internet is needed only once, to set up.

Download and install

Download for Mac (0.5 MB). macOS 12 or newer with Python 3.9 or newer (most Macs have it; if not, macOS offers to install it). Free; version 0.1.0.

  1. Unzip the download and drag Python Lab.app into your Applications folder.
  2. Double-click it. The app is free and not registered with Apple, so the first time macOS may say it cannot be opened: click Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway (on macOS 14 or older, Control-click the app and choose Open).
  3. The first start installs numpy, pandas and matplotlib for the app (internet needed once, a minute or two). The course then opens in your web browser.
  4. Closing the browser tab quits the app. Your progress and code stay on your Mac.

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