open (IF, "/home/stanley/Desktop/18048320.txt");
my $text = <IF>;
my @splittext = split (/[.] [A-Z]/, $text);
close (IF);

##</code><code>##

open my $if, '<', '/path/to/file' or die "/path/to/file: $!";
# complete file content in one scalar
my $text = do { local $/; <$if> }
close $if;

##</code><code>##

#for my $gene ( <HANDLE> ) {
while ( my $gene = <HANDLE> ) {