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Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

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Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#11

Post by tjr »

A few years ago, I was talking with the director for bioinformatics and such at a reasonably large medical research university. He told me they really don't hire "pure" computer science people any more, because there are increasingly academic programs combining CS with biology, and they much prefer to hire people who are skilled in both arenas.

That said, I agree with you; it ought to be possible for a good programmer to get into the field and be useful. But gaining more experience/knowledge about the biology side of things may be an important ingredient.

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#12

Post by bioweek »

kapauldo wrote: post #8

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…

That sounds like a good idea. I'll give that a try.

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#14

Post by jamongkad »

phren0logy wrote: post #13

There are plenty of approaches that are helpful for programmers in both Web and Bioinformatics domains. Seriously. Check out Programming Collective Intelligence, and I bet it will give you some ideas.

You would be referring to the book written by Toby Sagaran would you? If it is I second your notion, an excellent book btw. Really got me into algorithms and the like.

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#15

Post by nvn1 »

Coming from having done a Bioinformatics PhD and Post-Doc, I reckon getting in touch speculatively with people in Bioinformatics should work. You might get a lot of knock-backs but there's definitely a need for people with IT skills and a genuine interest in Biology. I'd also say that a strong grounding in statistics would be the biggest selling point - probably greater than a knowledge of biology. Good luck, I hope it works out for you.

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#16

Post by rglullis »

That's exactly what happened to me, but I have to say that it was more of an accident than a planned move.

I was looking for a job where they'd hire people with Python skills and that could provide sponsorship for a H1B. The intersection of these requirements proved to be quite small, but I was fortunate to find a research lab affiliated to Harvard Medical that did just that.

My first project has less to do with bioinformatics and more with secure manipulation of patients' EMR. It's funded by the CDC and all of the code is GPL.

I think the other project I'm getting involved is more according to what you are looking for: Galaxy (http://galaxy.psu.edu/) is a really cool system where you can process and share huge amounts of data. It's also an open source project(http://bitbucket.org/galaxy/galaxy-central/wiki/Home), and Penn State is hiring.

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#17

Post by stevenbedrick »

nvn1 wrote: post #15

Coming from having done a Bioinformatics PhD and Post-Doc, I reckon getting in touch speculatively with people in Bioinformatics should work. You might get a lot of knock-backs but there's definitely a need for people with IT skills and a genuine interest in Biology. I'd also say that a strong grounding in statistics would be the biggest selling point - probably greater than a knowledge of biology. Good luck, I hope…

I'll second the "strong grounding in statistics" point. Most computational bioinformatics ultimately boils down to statistics in some form or another...

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#18

Post by Gmo »

rglullis wrote: post #16

That's exactly what happened to me, but I have to say that it was more of an accident than a planned move. I was looking for a job where they'd hire people with Python skills and that could provide sponsorship for a H1B. The intersection of these requirements proved to be quite small, but I was fortunate to find a research lab affiliated to Harvard Medical that did just that. My first project has less to do with bioi…

We started using Galaxy a couple of months ago in my company. I'm not involved in the projects using it but I've seen a demo and it seemed like a cool software, although it has its glitches, according to my colleagues :)

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#19

Post by falsestprophet »

You may not have luck finding work in the field without knowledge of biology or chemistry or statistics or maths. There are many graduate programs that focus on retraining software developers as bioinformatics researchers. Also consider cheminformatics.

Please send me an email [1] if you want to learn more. The lab I work in is always looking for eager new students.

[1] http://mailhide.recaptcha.net/d?k=01kUsXu40I09lRKAR_qd4ZFQ==...

Re: Ask HN: How can a Web Developer get into Bioinformatics?

#20

Post by blaser »

You can get into bioinformatics without a background in biology, but you'll need some math. Assuming you have basic calculus & some statistics, I'd recommend looking at the Univeristy of Illinois at Chicago's online certificate in bioinformatics (http://proteomics.bioengr.uic.edu/online/). You take an intro course and then choose two more from among computational genomics, molecular modeling and biostatistics. It's a great program. They also have a masters of engineering degree with a bioinformatics specialization, again completely online.

If you're looking for something more immediate, get a hold of a couple books and familiarize yourself with the basics. Mount's Bioinformatics is great, and it's the text for the intro class at UIC. Other good ones are Bioinformatics Algorithms, Python for Bioinformatics, and the O'Reilly books on Perl for Bioinformatics.

Finally, hook up with a bio professor who needs some tech help and volunteer. You'll learn a ton.

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