do a search of recently awarded government grants on bioinformatics, particularly small business grants (SBIR). awards are all public, so you should have no problem finding them. contact those folks and just tell them honestly what you are interested in doing (be sure to read their awards first so you have some idea what work they're doing). everyone respects people who are trying to learn new skills, and i think you…
I clicked on the 'past awards' link on this page http://www.sbir.gov/
and after lots of signing up and applying for things, I think they 'declined' me to view the past awards because I'm not a government employee. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a better place to look this up?