Bioinformatics in The Economist

Erich Schwarz writes "Bioinformatics has gone from being an esoteric sub-field to being a business. The Economist gives a useful overview, while warning 'Bioinformatics is not for the faint of heart...'"

Comments

What I'd major in

[SteweyGriffin]

If I had to do it again, I'd definitely choose biology or bioengineering or something related.

It seems as most everything in computer has "been done", and biology/chemisty/biochemical engineering seems to be where all the fun & excitement is these days.

Anyone else agree? Just curious.

Re:What I'd major in

[coloth]

this combination can be hard to come by

I guess there'll be a few with outright credentials, some more who are smart enough to wing it while they learn what they're missing, and a lot of people who contribute as part of a team.

If you haven't read Ship of Gold by Gary Kinder, about Tommy Thompson's life and eventual recovery of $1 billion in gold from the deep sea, I strongly recommend it, especially to any scientific or engineering-oriented person. Tommy's story is a case study in how to break new ground, think creatively, and form networks of expertise. It convinced me that credendials, and even past experience, may not be the best indicators of future success.

Re:What I'd major in

[GuySmiley]

As a molecular biologist, I steer interns out of biology. Blend bio with any other discipline. You will spend your entire life justifying the 90% of experiments that fail, justifying your existance to get grants, etc. Bio-business, bio,-programming, bio-sales, bio-anything. Lab rats at the bench make no money, get zero respect, get zero creative control and are this generation's ditch diggers.

A decade of scientific failures is indescribably difficult to explain, but it is ungratifying. I have been taking Linux/SQL classes for the last few years trying to steer into the digital world, and thus mine and slashdot's interests are now intersecting.

Yes, having interesting work can only go so far. You still have Senior management flushing the cool stuff you invent down the toilet or left on the vine to rot. At the end of the day , you still have a pile of bills to pay.

looking for meaningful work in MPLS fleabag-at-covat-dot-net

The submitter is correct

[SteweyGriffin]

Bioinformatics is really where it's out. Just glancing around at various newspapers, it's readily apparent where the future is heading.

Is it really what we want/need as humans? I'm not sure. But I for one won't wager a guess until there's more research done in the area, so I say let's explore it more before we defame it conclusively or support it as a technological breakthrough.

Some other recent news items:
Nabda, Unesco Collaborate in Bioinformatics Training
AllAfrica.com,Africa-05 Dec 2002
... Development Agency (NABDA) and the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO), penultimate Tuesday held a two-day Bioinformatics ...

Bioinformatics ahead for Danville
Danville Register and Bee,VA-30 Nov 2002
... Developing these plants will involve both horticulture and bioinformatics and will
be one major focus of Danville's Institute for Advanced Learning and Research ...

The race to computerise biology
Economist (subscription),UK-12 Dec 2002
Welcome to the world of bioinformatics--a branch of computing concerned
with the acquisition, storage and analysis of biological data. ...

Observing Proteins And Cells In The Wild: Quantum Dots May ...
Science Daily-13 Dec 2002
... Today it is internationally renowned for research and graduate education
in the biomedical sciences, chemistry, bioinformatics and physics. ...

Viewpoints

[VoidEngineer]

Hmmm. Seems like it would be easier to say that everything which has been done in computer science has 'been done', whereas everything that hasn't been done in computer science, 'hasn't'.

Seriously, though, you may be mis-categorizing your subjects. Look at computers as computational entities, rather than disk drives, monitors, and so forth. In that case, an optical computer or a biocomputer operates on many of the same systems priciple as a 'digital computer', and there is therefore much to be done in the field of computer science.

Absolutely. Optical computing is getting some great advances in Holographic Video at the MIT Spatial Imaging Group. And chemical computing is advancing nicely in Carbohydrate Chips at the University of Chicago.

For my money, I'd bet on optical video cubes, 3D television, and biochips in the future... which are all applications of computer technology. Remember, 'computer' use to refer to the job title of a person.

For my money, I think that the future has got SnowCrash, Cryptonomicon, Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, and Johnny Mnemonic written all over it (and maybe a bit of Jurassic Park.

bad idea

[g4dget]

Don't pick what is fashionable, pick what you are interested in. The biological sciences are very different from computer science and engineering. Chances are that if you weren't interested in the biological sciences when you picked your major, you still wouldn't be today.

What you can do, however, is apply computer science and engineering skills to biological problems: work as a developer or engineer for a biotech company or lab.

Don�t forget Chemoinformatics

[Wdi]

While there is a real hype about bioinformatics, do not forget its sister discipline, chemoinformatics. Chemoinformatics is more concerned about handling chemical structures rather than genomes (but the boundaries are not that clear, and companies such as Accelrys 8cited in the article] are more a chemoinformatics than a bioinformatics company).

An interesting overview about CI can be found at Nature.

Still, you need dedication for this job: A Ph.D. in chemistry plus solid computer science knowledge is still the norm. But those few who qualify are really sought after.

Disclosure: I am the Director of Chemoinformatics at start-up ChemCodes (www.chemcodes.com), so I know what I am talking about.

Re:Bioinformatics runs on Open Source

[glwtta]

Or go straight to bioperl.org, one of the absolute key projects for bioinformatics.

In case you are wondering, there is a biopython, biojava, biocorba, bioxml, biruby, etc. but perl is really where 90% of bioinformatics is done (simply because, in the end, all it is is text processing)