I work as a molecular biologist at a large pharma company and we had a fabulous speaker come the other day (damned if I can remember his name) and talked about the sheer amount of data that is coming in for cancer genomics. As a cancer researcher, this seems like a goldmine, if only the data can be harnessed correctly.
Additionally, the new sequencing technologies (for RNA and DNA) are making microarrays obsolete to some researchers, but the increase in data presents a new challenge.
These areas seem a lot more interesting to me than modeling and docking, which don't seem (to me) to involve much need for an intensive computer background.
The good news is that you've got a few years to figure it out, and you will go to many seminars in that time. I'd be more concerned with joining the right lab...
My favorite vector drawing program is Canvas by Deneba http://www.deneba.com/. I use it all the time to make figures for journal articles (molecular biology and biophysics).
So far, I have not found anything it cannot do that I need, and it is cheaper than Illustrator. It's intuitive, stable, and powerful. I'm constantly surprised it doesn't get more attention.
stop needlessly invading countries so that there is no need for such a ray gun? Or change our foreign policies to stop pissing off so many people (and stop killing so many innocent people)? Doesn't this sound like treating the symptom instead of the real problem?
I moved from California to Germany this summer to do a post-doc position. This was for various (mostly political) reasons, including finding out as a gay man, what it was like to be treated as a first-class citizen. I had originally planned to come back to the US in 2006, but now I think I will extend my stay here a few more years. Perhaps indefinitely.
The worst part about being abroad (as an American) at a time like this is the resulting discussions around the water cooler that ensue regarding the current political situation. I have to say that I feel pretty small when the topic of Bush's popularity comes up. People here are just appalled (rightly so) that over half the friggin' country voted for that idiot. Also, the anti-American jokes and comments are really beginning to get to me.
I don't know that I want to be an American abroad, but I certainly don't want to be an American in the US!
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Additionally, the new sequencing technologies (for RNA and DNA) are making microarrays obsolete to some researchers, but the increase in data presents a new challenge.
These areas seem a lot more interesting to me than modeling and docking, which don't seem (to me) to involve much need for an intensive computer background.
The good news is that you've got a few years to figure it out, and you will go to many seminars in that time. I'd be more concerned with joining the right lab...
Good luck.
So far, I have not found anything it cannot do that I need, and it is cheaper than Illustrator. It's intuitive, stable, and powerful. I'm constantly surprised it doesn't get more attention.
stop needlessly invading countries so that there is no need for such a ray gun? Or change our foreign policies to stop pissing off so many people (and stop killing so many innocent people)? Doesn't this sound like treating the symptom instead of the real problem?
I moved from California to Germany this summer to do a post-doc position. This was for various (mostly political) reasons, including finding out as a gay man, what it was like to be treated as a first-class citizen. I had originally planned to come back to the US in 2006, but now I think I will extend my stay here a few more years. Perhaps indefinitely.
The worst part about being abroad (as an American) at a time like this is the resulting discussions around the water cooler that ensue regarding the current political situation. I have to say that I feel pretty small when the topic of Bush's popularity comes up. People here are just appalled (rightly so) that over half the friggin' country voted for that idiot. Also, the anti-American jokes and comments are really beginning to get to me.
I don't know that I want to be an American abroad, but I certainly don't want to be an American in the US!
-j