GEAR Genomics: a user-friendly, open-source web platform enabling interactive genomic analysis for molecular biologists

Many routine genomics tasks in molecular biology still depend on heterogeneous and proprietary software tools that hinder accessibility, reproducibility, and seamless laboratory use. We present GEAR (https://www.gear-genomics.com/), a unified, web-based genomics framework that provides a collection of lightweight, interactive applications for common molecular biology and genomics analyses directly in the browser. GEAR requires no software installation, user registration, or licensing and is designed for rapid, intuitive use without prior bioinformatics expertise. The platform integrates robust, well-established backend algorithms with modern web technologies to support a diverse set of tasks, including Sanger chromatogram visualization, alignment and variant detection, primer and padlock probe design, in-silico PCR, qPCR analysis, barcode generation and inspection, sequencing quality control, DNA manipulation, and sequence alignment visualization. In summary, GEAR serves as an integrated, open, extendible, and user-friendly genomics web server that consolidates a diverse set of tools within a single coherent framework with all code free and open-source (https://github.com/gear-genomics). By emphasizing interactivity, reproducibility, and ease of use, GEAR aims to support both routine laboratory tasks and exploratory genomic analyses across a broad range of research applications.