Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#41

Post by Ultimatt » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:24 PM UTC

jayparth wrote: post #29

shpongled wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction here is starting a company vs leading a company. To just walk in and lead an established company - you'd be fine with a better than average understanding, as long as you trust the experts in your company to do what is right. To found a company? How do you know where to start? If you are hiring PhDs to come up with the idea for you, how do you if their ideas are novel or worthwhile? Not to disparag…

I think the key distinction is that there is a well-established infrastructure around software, such that the average SaaS founder (even 10 years ago) is/was not doing fundamentally new things with computers. If they were, they would probably need to understand computer science well. Take any moonshot ML company- they need quite deep technical depth and usually have a founder that has spent time in academia. We are s…

A big issue is its actually expensive to start a company that involves lab. Software can genuinely be one person in their bedroom with some AWS credit. I think the "why has no one else done this?" question is one of the worst anyone in the history of business or science can ask themselves. Any opportunity looks like that, it's why its an opportunity! The very best ones look like an obvious gaping chasm when you see them.

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#42

Post by cft » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #38

my background is in biotech and i've worked at a small handful of biotech startups in a scientific capacity. here's my advice: unless you have friends who can set you up with the right VCs and ensure that they will be willing to overlook your lack of experience and IP, don't bother. you're not going to get up to speed working in the lab on your own in any short amount of time. learning the theoretical stuff that you…

But here's the question: maybe you can become a provider of highly optimized big data processing or data visualization software, without deep knowledge in biology?

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#43

Post by Ultimatt » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #16

shpongled wrote: post #8

I'm in my 5th year of a chemical biology PhD and I'm looking to potentially move into computer science/data science (been programming for 15 years) after I graduate. Maybe we can just switch? I work with CRISPR for my project. In all seriousness, you are going to need a PhD if you want to truly understand all of the background of the field. Human biology/biochemistry is just about the most complex thing humans have e…

> just about the most complex thing humans have ever studied The question is if the methods are complex. AFAIK computational biology involves statistics, statistics and statistics. The systems themselves are incredibly complex and interconnected , but the abstraction levels of the math involved are not incredibly high.

There is statistics and then there is statistics. For example this paper is statistics based https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3487 with some novel data too. But its stats over graphs, which is way less straight forward. You don't just fire up R and do model https://mogrify.co.uk/

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#44

Post by vbordo » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

Odenwaelder wrote: post #23

codingdave wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you are going to need a PhD if you want to truly understand all of the background of the field Is that the need, though? Few SaaS CEOs truly understand all the background of computer science. They do understand the problem space, but they leave it to the experts in the organization to get into the details of applying computer science to the problem. Is biology different, where the level of expertise needs to be at…

In biology, the problem space is extremely vast and very hard to understand. I have a PhD in biology and find computer science relatively logical and simple. You can just look things up. Looking things up for a specific topic is not even easy in biology.

> Looking things up for a specific topic is not even easy in biology

How do you find info on bio topics right now?

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#45

Post by cryoshon » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

cft wrote: post #42

cryoshon wrote: post #38

my background is in biotech and i've worked at a small handful of biotech startups in a scientific capacity. here's my advice: unless you have friends who can set you up with the right VCs and ensure that they will be willing to overlook your lack of experience and IP, don't bother. you're not going to get up to speed working in the lab on your own in any short amount of time. learning the theoretical stuff that you…

But here's the question: maybe you can become a provider of highly optimized big data processing or data visualization software, without deep knowledge in biology?

you probably can, but it's hard to know what will be in demand without doing a lot of customer interviews with the people who would need your service.

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#46

Post by julius_set » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

shpongled wrote: post #8

I'm in my 5th year of a chemical biology PhD and I'm looking to potentially move into computer science/data science (been programming for 15 years) after I graduate. Maybe we can just switch? I work with CRISPR for my project. In all seriousness, you are going to need a PhD if you want to truly understand all of the background of the field. Human biology/biochemistry is just about the most complex thing humans have e…

Ignore this.

I studied Genetics and CS. What you can do instead is reach out to the PhDs and gather information from them to start getting a general sense of the direction.

This is easy some schools allow you to sit in on lectures / come to events. Most PhDs are usually off working independently though. Make friends with the competent PhDs gather info. Hack the system you don’t need a PhD you can hire one later.

This is all assuming you have the raw talent of product and can lead well, and can convince people exceptionally well, otherwise disregard.

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#47

Post by fabian2k » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

iongoatb wrote: post #40

Odenwaelder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Not enough for starting a biotech startup as OP would like to do. Having a PhD means that you've spent years on a certain subject. You cannot just read a book and be up to speed on biomedical research and CRISPR. 2) Having hands-on experience in wet labs is useful and relatively easy to learn. People can learn wet lab skills sufficient to carry out experiments (i.e. pipetting stuff together) in under a year. This…

Never recommended just "reading a book" - although books are for knowledge transfer. In fact, I recommended the exact opposite. Creating or joining a lab to do DIY genetic engineering is not pipetting. Anyone can easily obtain the materials to do CRISPR and implement various ideas they get from reading the latest research and literature. It is exactly analogous to the computer and internet revolution. All of those fo…

Just taking a quick look at the DIY stuff, that only seems to cover the initial genetics experiments. The equipment offered on the Odin project sites doesn't really cover what comes after that.

What do you do after you introduced a plasmid or modified the genome of some bacteria?

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#48

Post by pkpkpk2 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

Odenwaelder wrote: post #36

iongoatb wrote: post #31

I'm curious who all these sarcastic bio "experts" are that are suggesting getting a PhD or hiring one. I'm a former bio major and researcher/scientist that transitioned to software engineering years ago. I've published papers in bio and worked with many PhDs. Many of them were idiots. Being a PhD doesn't mean anything, it's the independent work that you put in yourself (in an academic lab or by yourself) that determi…

1) Not enough for starting a biotech startup as OP would like to do. Having a PhD means that you've spent years on a certain subject. You cannot just read a book and be up to speed on biomedical research and CRISPR. 2) Having hands-on experience in wet labs is useful and relatively easy to learn. People can learn wet lab skills sufficient to carry out experiments (i.e. pipetting stuff together) in under a year. This…

RE: "Having a PhD means that you've spent years on a certain subject. You cannot just read a book and be up to speed on biomedical research and CRISPR."

Isn't that what books are for? To compile, document and share knowledge some people spent years to figure out?

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#49

Post by iongoatb » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

fabian2k wrote: post #47

iongoatb wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never recommended just "reading a book" - although books are for knowledge transfer. In fact, I recommended the exact opposite. Creating or joining a lab to do DIY genetic engineering is not pipetting. Anyone can easily obtain the materials to do CRISPR and implement various ideas they get from reading the latest research and literature. It is exactly analogous to the computer and internet revolution. All of those fo…

Just taking a quick look at the DIY stuff, that only seems to cover the initial genetics experiments. The equipment offered on the Odin project sites doesn't really cover what comes after that. What do you do after you introduced a plasmid or modified the genome of some bacteria?

There are plenty of ways to get access to and use the advanced equipment that you may need for research after getting past the beginner and intermediate level. This comes to mind: https://www.biolabs.io/

Re: Ask HN: Getting started in biology with a software background

#50

Post by cft » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #45

cft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But here's the question: maybe you can become a provider of highly optimized big data processing or data visualization software, without deep knowledge in biology?

you probably can, but it's hard to know what will be in demand without doing a lot of customer interviews with the people who would need your service.

Where is the best place to meet the right people? I talked to my friend (PhD) and she explained the process of conversion from Illumina file formats all the way to numpy , but I would love to know more.