In this section you will learn how to get started with the Biology Workbench; namely, opening an account, logging into your account, and creating a session (i.e. folder) to store your data.

Opening An Account
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Go to the Biology Workbench homepage in Workbench panel. Click on the link that says, "Registration". If you already have an account, go ahead and log into the program. If not, you need to open an account first.  It is free and it is available immediately. Once your account is created, you will be taken to another website Click on the link that reads Biology Workbench to go to the main page.

Starting a New Session
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There are a few different sets of tools supplied by the Workbench. They are Session Tools, Protein Tools, Nucleic Tools, Alignment Tools and Structure Tools (Alpha). To maintain some organization in your research, you should create a new session for every new topic you research.
1. From the window highlight the line that reads Start New Session and click Run, You will be taken to another window
2. Type the name of the new session, for example, Endosymbiosis, in the space provided and then click the Start New Session button You will be taken to another window.

Once set up with your own account and new session you can really begin. In this section you will learn how to search databases for protein sequences. Finding the wild type prion protein sequence is a great way to get started.

In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to use tools that will allow you to search protein databases and analyze amino acid sequences that you import into the Workbench. To get to the Protein Tools homepage, click on the "Protein Tools" button at the top of the window.



As you can see, the Protein Tools homepage has four main areas. At the top, the area labeled "a", tells us which domain we are currently in, and allows us to switch between domains (by simply clicking on the different buttons). "b" is the jist of the workbench: it is a menu of tools that allow us to search for, import, edit, and analyze sequences. Area "d" is where the sequences that you import into the Workbench are listed; it is currently "Empty" since we have not imported any sequences yet. The only part of area "c" that is of interest to us is the "Run" button. In the Workbench, it has exactly the same function as the "enter" key on a keyboard: once a sequence has been selected, and a tool highlighted in the tool menu, the tool is activated by clicking on the "Run" button.