Working on the assumption that the reader has no formal training in programming perl programming for biologists demonstrates how perl is used to solve biological problems each chapter opens with a set of learning objectives provides numerous review questions and self study exercises and concludes with a bulleted summary of key points. Working on the assumption that the reader has no formal training in programming perl programming for biologists demonstrates how perl is used to solve biological problems each chapter opens with a set of learning objectives provides numerous review questions and self study exercises and concludes with a bulleted summary of key points. Session 1 introduction perl for biologists 12 16 perl is a loosely typed interpreted object oriented programming language loosely typed easier to write more flexible no need for extra code to cast variables very easy to make errors perl variables are typed dynamically based on context interpreted