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Career Choices for Computational Biologists?
wengkius writes "I'm entering grad school this year and will be working towards a higher degree in Computational Biology. While my undergraduate training has been in computer science, I'm looking to apply what I've learned in a new area that has piqued my interest. Now my question is this: apart from the obvious career choices that I have thought of (academic research, pharma corporations, biotech startups), are there any other career options that I have yet to consider? Would be great to hear from Slashdotters who are familiar with the field."
Huh? Sorry, IANAL nor a degreed professional, but if I'd spent that much time of my life and that much money... uhm, I'd have given it way more thought than you seem to have done.
/.'s opinion of the worth of computational biology, well I'd say that there is lots of work to be done yet. That whole genetic splicing and stem cell research and genomic research etc. There is also AI and robotics research teams that you might find interesting.
Not to slam you unconditionally, I'm sure you have given this some thought, but since we don't really know what you are good at and what you like (other than school) how about you give us a multiple choice list of things you have considered and we as slashdotters will duly vote in the latest poll.
If you simply want
I'll wait for the multiple guess poll, thanks.
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Plastics.
My advice -- be familiar with the tools and techniques, and pick a fun and collaborative project. Whether computational chemistry (my field) or biology, the tools that you use can and will be applied elsewhere. Being familiar with measures of similarity (Tanimoto similarity, for instance), has implications to multiple fields, as does multivariate modeling (PLS, SVMs, K-nearest-neighbor models, etc). I know several grads who 'jumped ship' to market analysis/market prediction (think brokerages and Wall Street). The point is, you become an expert in your field, and have the offers come to you.
Cheers,
-Mike
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
Two words.
Biotech startups.
In the question for fucks sake.
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It depends on your program's definition of Computational Biology. Traditionally, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics have referred to the same general type of work, but more recently each has taken on more precise meanings, especially in industry. Computational Biology primarily refers to ab-initio, in-silico modeling of biological systems (conformation, docking, systems biology simulations). Bioinformatics refers to the analysis of biological data, primarily from the various "omics" (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics, etc).
In industry, computational biology is viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. The promise of in-silico modeling has been just around the corner since the 70s and no system has yet delivered on the promise. If this is what you're doing, stay in academia and keep working on the dream (but, apply to D.E. Shaw Research on the off chance you can get a job there, they're building a supercomputer for this). Or, if you would like a bigger paycheck and more predictable work, switch over to computational chemistry, which is much more accepted and an important component of most drug discovery pipelines.
Bioinformatics, on the other hand, is basis of many product and research groups. The most important skills are the ability to communicate with biologists and experience with genomic databases, genomic search tools, and statistical modeling along with the ability to tie it all together programatically. This often includes developing data mining pipelines and creating nice Web interfaces for the scientists to access them with. Good CS and programming skills can give you a leg up over the people with bioinformatics degrees. If this is what you want to do and you're young/single, biotech startups or bioinformatics startups are a lot of fun. You'll work hard and the company will probably go under, but it's a great way to get deep experience in the field and make connections for your next job.
Right now, the most exciting industrial work is probably around next-gen sequencing platforms. Look at 454/Roche, Applied Biosystems (SOLiD), or Illumina. Lots of really interesting high-performance computing, algorithmic, and scientific challenges.
Good luck!
-Chris
A program at my previous college would graduate 5-6 bioinformaticians with PhDs a year. The ones who got snapped up were the ones who also had a substantial background in the biology they were working with. Take whatever genetic/bio courses you can fit in along with your bioinformatics work. When choosing a doctoral project, try to find one that involves collaboration between your advisor and professor in the genetics or cell biology department. As some posted above, bioinformaticians can find jobs pretty much anywhere biologists are employed, but the biologists will be important in making any hiring decisions and they want someone who understands the biology in addition to being a wiz at the computational stuff.
Working at a national laboratory is another option. I was an intern at Los Alamos for two summers working on proteomics research as a code monkey. There is a pretty broad array of topics you can work on at places of that size, so that may provide you more opportunity to find something you like than working at a university. And it probably pays better :)
I know it is still academic research, but it is a very different environment than a school lab.
I got my PhD last year in a similar field, and I made the leap into video game development. Best decision I ever made. Besides the fun factor, the biggest issue in a science career (well, in academia at least), is just how freakin long it takes to get your career going. After grad school, 6 years in my case, you have to do a post-doc for a few years, then get (hopefully) get a tenure-track faculty position, then work your ass off to actually get tenure. Then, if everything goes right, your career starts. For me, that time commitment was simply not worth it.
Submitter here. Thanks for all those replies. Some of them were really helpful and will no doubt be food for thought when I consider my options. I did an internship in one of the big pharma companies (**K) and managed to do some interesting (to me at least) work related to molecular drug discovery using computational approaches. As a CS student, I would have never imagined using the stuff that I learned on a field such as this. The only thing that gives me reservations about working for big pharma is of course the ethics. I don't mean the animal testing part (security was quite tight at our research site as we were frequently the target of militant animal rights groups) but rather the gouging patients with ridiculously priced drugs part.